The Dead Music Club
by Tastychainsaws
Summary: When a highly contagious disease that turns humans into flesh eating monsters strikes without warning, the girls of Light Music Club must work together to survive the zombie apocalypse. Luckily Ritsu is the "Zombie Master", or so she thinks.
1. Miasma

**THE DEAD MUSIC CLUB CHAPTER 1- MIASMA**

**Disclaimer: **Zombies are inherently very brutal, violent, and destructive creatures. What I'm saying is- if you don't like dark stories with unhappy events, then this is not for you. I'm putting this here to avoid any reviews criticizing this story for being too dark. If you don't like dark stories, then don't read this. Simple as that. I hope that didn't come off as rude...

**WITH THAT IN MIND...**

"Much to the surprise of the United Nations, North Korea has made repeated threats towards some of the most advanced nations of the world. They have seemingly severed their shaky alliance with China, and included them with their threats. Although they were not specific as to what they would do if nations didn't lift their trade embargo's, they seemed rather confident that the United Nations would give into their demands. Their demands were as followed..."

Hirasawa Yui used the remote to turn the television off. Too many big words about too many places she didn't care about. She picked up her school bag and called up the stairs, "Ui, are you ready to go!"

Her sister, Ui, marched down the stairs with her own school bag, and Yui's guitar on her back, "Onee-chan, you almost left this behind."

Yui blinked in surprise, it was unlike her to forget something like that, "Oh, thank you Ui. I owe you one."

"If you keep saying that, you're going to have to take me to Paris or something." Ui chuckled. With all the times that her sister had said that, she wasn't too far off with that exaggeration.

The two of them walked side by side in the cool autumn morning towards their school. Although she didn't have anything specific to look forward to, Yui knew it was going to be a good day. The sun was behind a light sheet of clouds, bathing the city in a blood red glow. She didn't know why such a color was associated with war, she though it was beautiful.

The sisters said their goodbyes when they arrived, each of them going to visit their respective friend groups. Yui happily skipped along to meet her band mates, but she had to decided whether or not to see if they were in the classroom or the clubroom first. She tried the classroom, and with luck, they were there.

"Good morning everyone!" She said and waved at them. The rest of the Light Music Club had arrived before her, as always, and were standing or sitting in the corner. Yui noticed that the younger guitarist, Azusa, wasn't there. Even if they had different classes, she was almost always there with them. Yui knew that was because Azusa secretly loved her and wanted to have her babies; but was biding her time silently.

"Good morning, Yui-chan." Tsumugi said with a bow, Mio and Ritsu were too involved in some trivial argument to even notice her.

"Where's Azu-nyan?" Yui asked, and looked around to make sure that Azusa wasn't trying to ambush her for +7d6 sneak attack damage.

"Azusa-chan won't be here today." Tsumugi glumly said, "Her parents have both fallen ill and are confined to their beds. She's staying home to take care of them."

"I hope they get better soon, it's not the same when she's gone." Yui pouted, forgetting how she had gotten along just fine a full year before Azusa had joined them. She looked over at Ritsu and Mio, whose argument was getting more heated.

"...Even if they do have the means to back up their threats, North Korea would never instigate any sort of war with any country from the U.N." Mio adamantly argued.

With a shake of her head, Ritsu replied, "They work so hard on their military that everything else suffers. Think about how many missiles they must have, if they were just able to get a few of them off before they were shot down in orbit... Well they could easily take South Korea, China, and us straight out of the picture."

"Why would North Korea attack us?" Mio laughed.

"Read up on your history my dear Mio. We weren't exactly the nicest neighbors back sixty years ago." Ritsu said with a wag of her finger.

"Still, a tiny piss-poor nation like knows better not to attack a nation who's superior in every way." Mio told herself.

Yui leaned towards Tsumugi, "What are they arguing about? It sounds boring."

Tsumugi, knower of all, replied, "They're talking about how North Korea is threatening to take offensive action against the United States, The United Kingdom, South Korea, China, and Japan if a series of demands aren't met."

"Oh." Yui sighed, suddenly she had an exciting thought, "What do they want? Money? Power? To rule the world?"

"Mostly shares in major global companies and permission to use NATO forces for their own projects. Some other things too, but I don't remember what they were." Tsumugi told her. Yui paid attention to about half of that; it was too boring for her to divert attention to. Their brief conversation was cut even shorter when their teacher, Sawako, entered the room.

"Take your seats everyone, let's get today over with." She grumbled and made her way to the front of the room. The dark circles under her eyes were obvious to the entire class, and there was a nasally undertone to her voice that suggested illness. She sniffled, then wiped her nose with the back of her sleeve without caring what people thought, "Alright, does anyone want to take attendance for me? I'm not feeling too well today."

"On it." Nodoka Manabe said without missing a beat, as was expected from her. There were murmurs around the class about just how pale Sawako was looking. She hadn't been looking too great the last couple of days, especially with that virus going around, but now it surprised everyone to see that she even managed to show up today.

It was Yui who had the bravery to ask about it, "Sawa-chan, are you sure you're well enough to be teaching today?"

"I'm fine." Sawako replied, she was laying her head against her desk with her eyes closed.

"Well, it's been twenty minutes and you haven't moved from that spot." Yui pointed out.

"That's nice." The sensei dreamily sighed.

"Maybe you should go home, and they can find a substitute for you." Yui suggested.

"Too many teachers are out today with that virus going around, they can't spare anymore substitutes. As long as you don't get into any trouble, everyone here can do whatever they want." Sawako told her, then attempted to fall back asleep on her desk again. Yui relayed the news to her friends, which spread around the class. A few students who had more than half their teachers gone that day decided to just go home.

"Maybe I should just go home..." Ritsu said to herself. Mio was quick to put a stop to such ideas.

"No, that's the kind of thing that leads to you become a NEET." Mio sternly told her. Yui jumped at that word.

"Well, Mugi-chan seems to be leaving." Ritsu pointed out, and gestured to the door where Nodoka and her were standing with Sawako. The latter looked like she was having trouble standing.

"They're not leaving school." Mio sighed to the drummer, than stood up to go investigate just what they were doing. She casually approached them and asked about what they were doing.

"Ah, Tsumugi-san and I are escorting Sawako-sensei to the nurse's office. She really is too ill to be here today." Nodoka explained to her.

"Ah, that's very kind of you. Azusa's home taking care of her sick parents too; looks like this flu strain is getting pretty bad, huh?" Mio replied, very conversationally.

"It seems so." Nodoka nodded, "Well, we need to get going again. Tell the rest of the class to behave while Sawako-sensei is gone. There should be a substitute here after lunch."

"Alright, I'll tell them." Mio assured her, then went to go do just that. Her news was met with varying degrees of enthusiasm. Some people were deathly worried about their teacher, some were apathetic towards her absence, and some were glad to be relieved of adult authority.

Mio took this opportunity to get ahead on her studies. With all this free time, she cracked open a text book and began copying down all the important sections for their upcoming test.

"What a crummy day." Yui sighed, outside it had just started raining. Those light clouds from that morning had turned into black storm clouds. Luckily, she had her umbrella in the clubroom, so at least she wouldn't get wet. That thought didn't cheer her up, she was still worried about Sawako. The woman looked like she had been awake for days, and forced to run a marathon too. Just as she was thinking that, Tsumugi returned with an unhappy look on her face. Its source was obvious, she was frivolously scrubbing at her blouse with a handful of paper towels; there was dark stain all over the front of it.

"Oh my god, what happened?" Mio asked after quickly making her way over to the keyboardist. Yui and Ritsu were right behind her in an instant.

Tsumugi shut her eyes and paused a moment before replying, "She threw up on me!"

"Is there anyway you could get you clothes changed?" Mio asked, using her nicest voice.

Ritsu, quickly seizing this opportunity, placed and arm around Mio's shoulder and said, "You know...that stain looks an awful lot like _blood_."

Mio's face went pale, and Ritsu could have sworn her pupils shrunk, "B-blood?"

Yui decided to be the hero, "It's not blood Mio-chan, red cereals can make your puke red too."

"We're in Japan, we don't eat any cereals." Ritsu scoffed. Mio was still too horrified by the image of her teacher vomiting blood to pay attention to them.

Tsumugi finally answered Mio's original question, "I have a spare blouse upstairs in the clubroom. Do you think it would be alright for me to leave and go change?"

Yui had to be the one to reply since Mio was still panicked for another 4 turns. After taking a short survey of her surroundings, she replied, "Half the class already left, what's another few of us?"

"Why do you have a spare uniform up there anyways?" Ritsu asked.

"I placed one in the storage closet in case one of you got wet again like Yui-chan did." Tsumugi explained, after another second she spoke again, "Wait, you're all coming with me?"

"You're walking around with red cereals all over you. You'll need an escort." Yui told her, matter-o-factly. Although Tsumugi didn't quite understand why being splattered with vomit required you to have an escort, she accept Yui's "logic" without question.

"I still say it's blood." Ritsu said, Mio moaned at that. The drummer sighed, and grabbed her by the hand to break her apparent paralyzation.

"Don't worry Mio-chan, we all know that it's red cereals." Yui assured her.

"For God's sake Yui, it's _cereal _not _cereals_!" Ritsu snapped at her. Yui shrugged it off and kept up following Tsumugi through the hallways of the school. Finally breaking away from her unnatural fear, Mio realized how anarchic their school had become all of a sudden. People wandering the hallways, shirts untucked, other things along those lines. Mio didn't believe that nasty flu strain was an excuse to throw away standards and social decency.

At the base of the stairs, one of their "classroom" friends, Satsuki, was sitting there with her head between her knees. Tsumugi was quick to make sure everything was alright with her, "Satsuki-san, are you not feeling well?"

"No, I feel like fucking shit." Satsuki said to her knees. Her tone was openly hostile, with a hint of exhaustion.

"I'm sorry to hear that." Tsumugi said with a bow, "Do you want help from one of us getting to the nurse's office?"

"The place is already packed, a lot of girls came in today with the flu." Satsuki replied, sounding hopeless, "One of those bitches gave me it, and I hope they get hit by a bus or something. Seriously, I'm starting to cough up blood."

Mio squirmed at that.

"You mustn't stay here then, you need to go home and get better. I can call a taxi and-" Tsumugi tried to tell her.

"Mugi-chan, it's fine." Satsuki cut her off, "I only live a few blocks away. When my stomach starts feeling better, I'll go on my own."

"Alright..." Tsumugi said, and reluctantly passed her on her way up the stairs. When they made their way to their clubroom, the chaos of the rest of the day seemed to melt away. Routine and familiarity took over, and the four of them were able to breathe a sigh of relief. Without even thinking, Yui was setting the table for tea, and Tsumugi was boiling water.

"Hey! Mugi-chan, please get into clean clothes first." Ritsu reminded her.

Tsumugi blushed over her occupational hazard, "Right, sorry, forgot for a moment."

Ritsu chuckled while shaking her head. She noticed that Mio was sitting on the couch, and hadn't said a word for a while now. "Hey, Mio-chan, is something up?"

"I was just hoping that Azusa didn't get ill as well." Mio whispered, "She's with her parents, who are sick. I just can't get the faces of Sawako and Satsuki out of my mind; they both looked so agonized. I would hate to see Azusa like that."

"I know." Yui agreed from behind them, "Azu-nyan is too cute, I would probably cry if I saw her like that."

"Do you think we should start wearing those masks over our mouths or something?" Ritsu asked. She had seen a few people with those, but they were already coughing so it was hard to tell how well they worked.

"I did that for the whole Swine Flu thing, and I still had it for like a week." Mio replied with a shake of her head, "No, let's just try not to come within coughing distance of anyone for awhile."

"Maybe we should just stay here until lunch, then see if there's a substitute teacher for Sawa-chan." Yui suggested.

Ritsu ignored her and went to torment Mio some more, "What do you do if someone pukes up blood on you though?"

Mio squirmed in terror and put her hands over her ears. Yui turned around and jumped in surprise when she saw Tsumugi in her underwear, apparently trying to decide whether or not to change into another school uniform...or maid outfit.

"Sorry Mugi-chan, but we're not allowed to wear maid costumes in class. I know from experience." Yui glumly told her.

Tsumugi sighed, "What about the dancer dress?"

"You mean the one that makes you look like Aya from _Biohazard_?" Ritsu asked from across the room.

"Yeah, that one." Tsumugi replied.

"Wear it." Ritsu adamantly said, "Wait, does it come with the boots?"

"No, just the dress."

"Then go with the school uniform then." Ritsu gave in. Tsumugi went with it, and was dressed back in normal clothes within seconds. Now they could move onto more important things- drinking tea. Although this was a common, and sacred practice to them. Drinking tea during class time somehow felt wrong, almost dirty.

"We should go back, shouldn't we." Mio spoke up, she was barely sipping at her tea.

"So we can continue doing nothing, at least here we can do nothing while drinking tea." Ritsu replied, she then held out her cup to Tsumugi, "Mugi-chan, fill 'er up."

"Yes ma'am." Tsumugi nodded, and went quickly to work to replace Ritsu's tea. She knew exactly how much honey, milk, and sugar each of them needed to be perfectly satisfied. However, in such a dismal, out of the ordinary atmosphere; satisfaction was difficult to achieve. Yui seemed content though, but that really wasn't worth celebrating. Celebrating the fact that Yui was happy was like congratulating yourself on waking up with all your limbs still attached.

"I don't know, this just doesn't feel right." Mio muttered, "Should we at least ask permission from Nodoka or someone first?"

"I'll text her then!" Yui announced, and produced her cellphone. With practiced precision, her fingers sped across the phones keypad until her desired message was sent, "Until we get a reply, we should just take it easy." To emphasize her point, she leaned back and plopped her feet on the desk.

"Don't do that, it's unbecoming." Mio scolded. Yui reluctantly obeyed.

As much as they wanted everything to be normal, like any other day, something just didn't feel right. The air seemed stale, and that peaceful quietness that usually engulfed the school was gone. Even up on the third floor, they could hear people from the second talking loudly since order had seemed to fail. Mio was eagerly awaiting someone to step up and put everything back into its place, so that school could resume its average scheduled pace.

Ritsu and Yui decided to treat it like something along the lines of a vacation. Just for one day, they could kind of sit back and relax without any worries. That tense atmosphere had faded, and the two of them were chatting away about a variety of topics that covered many aspects of their lives. Mio even joined in a few times. Not one of them realized that two hours had passed with no reply from Nodoka, or any word from anyone. Their clubroom was a sanctuary cut off from the rest of the school for now. And considering the flu going around, that wasn't necessarily a bad thing...Until they heard a message over the intercom.

It was the male voice of their schools headmaster, whose name none of them had ever bothered to learn. When his message began, all the talking from downstairs instantly ceased.

"Hello everyone, I realize today has been hectic with the flu strain. I want to thank all of you who stayed here despite the circumstances of many of our faculty. However, I have some very dire news. There are multiple suspicious people on campus who have taken advantage of this momentary state of disarray to enter the school premise. They will be dealt with quickly by law enforcement, but until then every student must stay in the classroom they are in with the doors locked and the window shades down."

When his message ended, the four girls stared at each other, eyes darting back and forth to one another. It was Ritsu who broke the silence, "So...Does that mean we stay in here?"

"I guess..." Mio whispered, "One of us should send a text message to someone in our class to tell them that we're still here."

"I sent one to Nodoka-chan, remember?" Yui reminded them.

"Send another then." Mio said, and stood up to go lock the single door closest to then. Ritsu followed suit and locked the double doors near her drumset.

"We don't need to lower the blinds for the windows up here do we?" Ritsu asked.

"Not if we stay out of sight of the windows on the doors." Mio replied. In a situation like this one, her bravery was admired by the other three. Then again, there wasn't really anything to be afraid of. Things like this periodically happened in middle school, it would be over within minutes. To keep out of sight of the "suspicious persons" they sat on the floor beneath the windows.

"Does anyone know any games we could play to pass the time?" Tsumugi asked. Mio was reading a book, Ritsu had her MP3 player, and Yui was sitting up to look out the window into the rain. The keyboardist was the odd one out with nothing to do.

"If only I had my old _Dungeons and Dragons _books with me, that would be a great way to pass the time." Ritsu lamented.

"Not that game again, you always found a way to completely shaft me." Mio growled at the drummer.

"I like it though, it was fun being a paladin." Tsumugi sighed, remembering those fond memories with her friends.

"I liked Lady Mugi-chan The Brave." Yui agreed. They all took a moment of silence for Lady Mugi-chan The Brave, who had rolled a 1 on her saving throw to avoid the black dragon's breath. There was no burial for the paladin, because there wasn't anything left of her to bury. It was universally agreed that Tsumugi was all around more likable when she wasn't a puddle on the ground. Which was why they went to great efforts to keep her eyebrows where they were.

Since there was no entertainment to be had for the keyboardist, she joined Yui in lazily watching the rain form puddles outside. Something outside caught her attention, and brought up a question she felt needed to be asked, "What kind of law enforcement did they say would show up?"

"They didn't say what kind." Mio replied, not looking up from her book. After a moment, she asked, "Why do you ask?"

"Look, doggies!" Yui said, and pushed her finger against the window in a rudimentary gesture of pointing. Mio quickly stood up to see what exactly was going on outside; Ritsu was too drawn into _The Who_'s _Won't Get Fooled Again _to notice her surroundings. Outside, Mio saw what looked to be armored cars...armored cars in her school's parking lot. Not only were they armored cars, but they were armored cars belonging to Japan's Ground Self-defense Force. Like Yui had said, they had brought police dogs with them.

Her calm was shattered as she slumped back onto the floor. The headmaster had certainly neglected the details of these "suspicious persons". This wasn't just some drunk guy staggering around with an unloaded gun or something, that didn't call for the military. She stood up, still shaking, "No, I have to go home where I know everything is alright. The flu, the military, this is just too much for me."

"But the headmaster said to stay in here." Tsumugi protested as Mio marched towards the door.

"I appreciate following rules as much as the next person, but I would feel much safer at home with my parents." Mio told them. Yui and Tsumugi waited a few moments before even reacting.

"Should we go after her, maybe even go home ourselves?" Yui asked as she started sending a text message to Ui. Apparently Ui's friend Jun had fallen ill with that flu, and she was escorting her home.

"I don't know." Tsumugi worriedly said, tears forming in her eyes. This unexpected schism did not bode well with her.

Ritsu removed her earbuds and looked around, "Hey, where did Mio go?"

"Do you pay attention to anything!" Yui shouted at her, there was no anger in her voice though.

"Nope." Ritsu proudly replied.

Tsumugi answered her original question, "Mio-chan decided that she would take her chances going home. But we saw those military vehicles outside, what if it isn't safe. It isn't like her to take a chance like this!"

Yui hugged, and gently began rocking the distraught keyboardist back and forth. Ritsu stood up and stretched, then began walking towards the door, "Well, I'm gonna go after her and make sure she's safe. I'll call you and tell you how it goes if we decided to leave; okay?"

"Okay." Yui nodded, trusting the drummer.

When Ritsu stepped outside, she could hear shouting downstairs in some of the hallways. Men yelling at each other, but she couldn't figure out what they were saying. But now she was starting to get a little afraid. To make sure Mio was okay, and to find out where she was, Ritsu dialed her number on her cell phone. Mio picked up after it rang twice.

"Hello?" Mio whispered, it sounded like she was crying.

"Mio! Where did you go, you just stormed off and it really freaked Tsumugi out." Ritsu replied as she walked down the stairs. Satsuki was still there from earlier, but she was standing up. The flu had only gotten worse it seemed, her skin was even paler before and her eyes were glazed over. Her face was completely devoid of any emotion, and her jaw was slacked just a little bit. Ritsu half thought that the girl was drunk.

"I'm in the bathroom on the second floor right now. Can you come get me?" Mio asked through her tears. Ritsu side stepped Satsuki who was trying to grab onto her for support or something. Yep, she was definitely drunk.

"Hey, not now!" Ritsu yelped at Satsuki as she staggered towards her.

"What?" Mio whimpered.

"Sorry, I was talking to someone else." Ritsu replied, without realizing that she was making hand gestures that Mio couldn't see.

"Just come get me!" Mio cried.

"Okay, okay. You're acting really weird, you know that?" Ritsu chuckled and passed a few more apparently drunk girls, "Mio, were they having a keg party down here or something? Everyone is either drunk, or that flu is worse than we thought."

"Stay away from them!" Mio cried, Ritsu had to pull the phone away from her ear at the sudden burst of noise.

"Okay, okay." Ritsu muttered and turned the knob of the door. It didn't budge, "Hey Mio. It's locked."

As if that was the magic word, there was a click at the door knob, and a shaken Mio practically fell onto Ritsu. Ritsu caught her and helped her compose herself again, "What's with you, you weren't even gone five minutes. Is it really that bad down here?"

Mio nodded, tears were flowing down her face. Ritsu used the back of her fingers to wipe a few of them off those cheeks, "Did someone try to hurt you or something? Tell me what happened."

The bassist said nothing, but with a shaking hand she pointed behind Ritsu. The headbanded drummer turned around felt her body freeze in fear. Like something out of a horror movie, there was one of her classmates, a girl whose name she never bothered to learn, shuffling towards them. Someone had apparently shot her at least a dozen times in the chest with an automatic weapon. Her uniform was turn apart by the bullets, and her pale body was painted red with blood. However, none of this even seemed to faze her as kept moving towards them.

She took a step backwards, which gave her a nice look into the inside of her classroom. Those two girls who were always together, long brown hair and shorter black hair, whose names Ritsu couldn't remember either (she decided that after this she was going to start taking a more active role in learning names) had their hands _inside _another girl, and were happily pulling parts of her out to feast upon.

Ritsu looked around and saw another girl who was _missing an arm_. In those few hours they were upstairs, Hell had opened up somewhere in their school or something. Another girl had her jaw torn off, and a sizable part of her large intestine was dragging behind her. As if to taunt her, they would occasionally hiss or let out a low, hollow, sorrowful moan.

She wanted to throw up, she wanted to crawl up into a ball and wish it all away. But a primal voice in the back of her mind was screaming, _Get the fuck out of there! _Never one to ignore such voices, she grabbed Mio by the wrist and ran back the way she came. All of those girls were slowly coming after them, with others joining their ranks. By the time they reached the stairs, there were at least a dozen behind them. Ritsu pushed Satsuki out of the way and ran back into the clubroom.

"Oh hey, Mio-chan's back." Yui said with a wave and a smile. That smile fell apart when she saw how Mio was crying, and that pale look of horror on Ritsu's face. It also seemed that Mio's fan club had followed her too; because she could see several people pressing themselves against the door from the outside. For some reason that Yui couldn't place, they were hissing and moaning.

Ritsu locked it, then laid down on the floor, staring up at the ceiling.

"So what happened downstairs?" Tsumugi asked the two.

The drummer sighed and turned her head to the blonde provider of tea, "Have you ever seen _Night of the Living Dead_?"


	2. Eaten Back To Life

**THE DEAD MUSIC CLUB CHAPTER 2- EATEN BACK TO LIFE**

Yui and Tsumugi could only sit there while Ritsu paced back and forth mumbling to herself. Something horrible had happened out there because Ritsu looked like she had lost her mind, and Mio hadn't said a word.

"Where were the army guys?" Yui asked, seeing them as the only hope of rescue against this unknown threat. All she knew was that a crowd of unruly "bad" people were preventing them from leaving the clubroom.

"Don't know." Ritsu quickly replied.

"The doggies?"

"Don't know."

"So, do you know anything?" Yui asked, her tone was rather upbeat considering the situation they were in.

"No!" Ritsu snapped at her, making the guitarist flinch back. The drummer sat down next to Mio and put an arm over her. She pulled the frightened girl close to her and tried to comfort her, "This is all probably a dream or something. And even if it isn't, stuff like in horror movies doesn't actually happen in real life. This is all some big practical joke I bet."

"This is a pretty bad joke then." Yui scoffed.

Mio sniffled and looked up at Ritsu, "No it's real. We both saw what those two girls were doing, and all the _blood_."

"It wasn't red cereals?" Yui asked from behind them.

"No it wasn't fucking red cereal!" Ritsu turned around and screamed in her face, "Fuck! Stop talking for two seconds so we can figure this out!"

Yui's lower lip quivered and she went back to the table to sit down next to Tsumugi. The keyboardist wasn't sure if the guitarist had ever been spoken to in that way before in her life.

Ritsu sighed again, not wanting to be the bad guy in all of this, "Mio, there's no way they were actually eating anyone."

"What about eating people?" Tsumugi cut in.

"How do you explain those girls with blood all over them then?" Mio asked. Ritsu was a bit surprised how adamant Mio was about proving that they were now in the setting of a horror movie, or manga.

"Red cereals?" Ritsu replied with a wide smile that exposed her shiny white teeth.

"This is not the time for jokes!" Mio shouted and bopped Ritsu on the head. Tsumugi could appreciate the fact that they were able to reengage in some of their usual behavior at a time like this. Hell, nothing would stop the Grand Vizier of Tea from enjoying a good head boppin'.

"Um...I understand if you don't want to talk about it, but Yui-chan and I are having trouble understanding just what is going on out there." Tsumugi told them. Ritsu and Mio looked at each other and nodded.

"You tell them, I don't even want to think about it." Mio said to Ritsu.

The drummer stood up and faced the other two, "Okay, well you know how more than half the school has had the flu for the last week or so?"

Yui and Tsumugi nodded, prompting Ritsu to continue, "I'm not sure how to really explain it... All those girls who were sick were staggering around, moaning, growling, hissing, trying to grab at us."

"Sounds like they needed friends." Yui mused. Tsumugi nodded in agreement.

"No, it wasn't like a friendly grab for a hug." Ritsu sighed, she realized that explaining this to the two of them was going to be a daunting task, "Look, they were covered in blood, some of them were missing parts of their body, and we even saw-"

"Stop!" Mio cried out. Ritsu gave her a surprised look, "They get the point, you're starting to scare them."

Indeed Tsumugi looked noticeably paler, although Yui seemed more amazed than anything. Yui asked the million dollar question, "So were they like zombies? The kind that try to eat people?"

"Yes! Yes, they were exactly like that. Eating people and everything." Ritsu replied, happy that she was finally getting it.

"Stop it Ritsu, they were not zombies!" Mio snapped at the drummer.

"May as well be. Whatever, Yui can have her red cereals back." Ritsu muttered under her breath. Yui made a fist and mouthed out _Yessss!_

The other two sat down next to them so they four of them were on the blue couch. Yui sighed aloud, "I hope they're not zombies, because in the movies it never ends good."

"It d-doesn't?" Tsumugi whimpered.

"Oh no, never." Ritsu replied casually.

"But...but...movies have to have a happy ending, right?" The keyboardist asked, sounding desperate for reassurance. The bassist on the couch had to wonder just what kind of movies Tsumugi was watching.

"Yes they always have a happy ending!" Mio assured her, "You've never seen a zombie movie, have you?"

Tsumugi shook her head, "Mother says they'll give me nightmares and cause me to mingle with the common born. I don't really know what a zombie is to be honest."

"Well, you're in the presence of a master here." Ritsu boasted, "I've been watching zombies movies, playing zombies games, and been reading zombies books all my life. So if this is indeed the long awaited zombie apocalypse, I can get us through this. I can beat Bio-hazard_ 2 _on hard mode in only three hours without saving or using first aid sprays. I did break about four controllers because of G cracking me with a pipe, but hey, I'm only human."

"What do you mean _long awaited_?" Mio scowled, ignoring the following monologue, "People wouldn't actually await this kind of thing, would they? We were out there for only five minutes and it was horrible!"

"Mio, don't be naïve. This gives all those sociopaths and necrophiliacs free reign to do as they please. Now even necropedophiles (like Tastychainsaws!) have a way to feed their fucked up fetish. Of course people have been awaiting this. But don't worry, those kind of people always die by the end." She explained to her.

"That doesn't make me feel better." Mio sighed.

"Anyways." Ritsu said, moving on, "Okay Mugi-chan, zombies are people that have been infected with some sort of virus that makes them come back to life after dying. However, when they come back, all they do is try to eat other people-"

"So they're back to life, but they eat people?" Tsumugi asked, trying to get it all understood, "I assume the most logical thing to do then would be to not feed them humans."

Ritsu heaved a heavy sigh and shook her head, "No, no, no, they don't come back to life and get fed people, they eat them...alive."

"Why would they do that?" Tsumugi blinked, "And people coming back to life doesn't sound too bad. Suppose one's grandmother died, she could keep living...just with that tiny little flaw with eating others. But hey, I'm sure plenty of cannibals have been able to lead normal lives."

"They're horrible undead monsters!" Ritsu tried to tell her, "You aren't understanding this at all. Zombies aren't just people who come back alive to keep doing what they did in life. Zombies come back to life only to eat people, that's all they do. And if you get bitten, you turn into one too."

"Well that certainly puts us in an unenviable position." The keyboardist finally agreed. The shock of being beset by the undead hadn't quite set in on her, which was fine for now. Yui halfheartedly nodded, she was engaged in texting her sister. Ui had gone back home, and Yui was telling her to lock all the doors and cover the windows. Luckily, Ui was vaguely aware of the danger outside. Even with how sudden it all had happened, she managed to safely avoid any less-than-alive persons that would wish her harm... or in their stomachs.

"How're you holding up, Yui?" Ritsu asked the guitarist.

Yui looked up from her cellphone and shrugged, "Okay I guess. I sent Azu-nyan a message telling her to be careful."

"Good, good." Ritsu nodded. She looked around the room and tried to figure something out. She stood in front of everyone and tried to get things in order, "Okay, so for the meantime we're kind of stuck in here until the crowd out there finds us a little less tasty."

"Thanks for reminding me." Mio sighed, Tsumugi put a comforting hand on her shoulder. It would take more than a friendly gesture to raise her spirits though.

"Well you can't hide from it." Ritsu said with a no-nonsense face, "Look, we can't just stay in here and hope they go away."

"We could wait for rescue." Mio suggested.

"Do you think anyone knows we're in here?" Ritsu pointed out.

"I already tried calling the police, the line was busy." Yui spoke up.

"Way to think ahead, and that proves my point." The drummer complimented her, "It looks like at this point the only people who can help us is ourselves."

"What do you think we should do then?" Tsumugi asked her.

"Wait, wait, wait, why is Ritsu making all the decisions?" Mio had to ask.

"Because I know more about this sort of scenario than anyone else." Ritsu replied with a haughty grin on her face.

"I vote Ricchan to be our leader." Tsumugi said with a raised hand.

"Me too." Yui said too, with a raise of her hand as well.

"Now that we've decided that, help me figure out a way out of here." Ritsu said, and stepped towards the whiteboard in the room. She uncapped a marker and drew a crude map of the part of the floor they were on. A series of X's represented the horde outside their door, "So we know that this door here is completely blocked and-"

"Why don't we just go out the other door?" Yui asked and pointed at the single door at the other side of the room.

"Because there's still the group of them we have to get through, what they're really blocking is the stairs. They're slow, but if they corner you...well you're screwed." Ritsu explained to her. The three girls shuttered at the thought of getting cornered by the undead.

"Could we sneak past them?" Yui asked.

"No, they got the whole hallway blocked." Ritsu sighed, "Wait! I thought of something, something obvious!"

"Obvious as in avoiding them altogether?" Mio asked.

"Nope." Ritsu replied with a confident smile, "I have an idea of how we can use their slowness to an advantage. One of us goes out the other door, then lures them around to that side while the other three run down the stairs. Then the bait can go through the club room and catch up with them."

"Bait?" Mio scowled.

"Yes bait!" Ritsu cheered, "This is a perfect plan, when they're out of the way we can just run all they way out of the school and out to freedom!"

"Are you sure it's safe? What if they're blocking more stairways?" Tsumugi asked.

"They only get in groups like that when the living are around. From what I saw downstairs, they're pretty spread out. If we just run past them, they wouldn't be able to react fast enough to catch us." Ritsu explained to her.

Yui grabbed her school bag and Gitah, "I trust Ricchan, I say we try this."

"No, it's too dangerous!" Mio cried out, startling the other three.

"It's better than waiting from them to break down that door." Ritsu sternly said and pointed at the double door. It was a thought that none of them had voiced aloud, eventually that door would give in. They were living on borrowed time.

"I trust Ricchan too." Tsumugi confidently said and picked up her bag.

"I can't do it though, I'll be too scared to run!" Mio cried out again, tears were now running down her face, "I'll be too scared to run, then you'll all get slowed down by me and then...then... _we'll all die_!"

"Mio..." Ritsu whispered, this was not something she had foreseen. She really wasn't prepared to raise the bassist's morale.

Tsumugi wrapped her arms around Mio and gently rocked her back and forth, "Don't worry Mio-chan. Your friends will take care of you, just hold my hand and I'll make sure nothing hurts you."

"R-really?" Mio whimpered, something about Tsumugi's voice and gentle caress was soothing her fears.

"I promise." Tsumugi assured her.

On the other side of the room, Ritsu noticed Yui was walking towards Ton-chan's tank with a blue bucket in hand.

"Yui, what are you doing?" Ritsu asked with her arms crossed.

"Taking Ton-chan with us, we can't just leave her here." Yui replied nonchalantly. Ritsu stepped over and yanked the bucket out of her hands and dropped it on the ground. The guitarist looked at her with a look of utter surprise,"_He-ey!_"

"We're not taking Ton-chan with us." Ritsu told her.

"But, if we leave her here then-" Yui tried to say.

"Yui. We're _not _taking Ton-chan with us." Her voice was raised a little higher this time.

"What if she gets hungry or lonely and-" Yui desperately tried to say.

"We're not toting the a bucket of water down stairs while sprinting for our lives."

"Don't forget the food, and filter thingy, but it wouldn't be that hard-"

"No!"

"B-but, we would be bad pet owners if we just-"

"Yui! We're _not fucking taking the fucking turtle with us_!" Ritsu screamed in her face.

"_Don't yell at me_!" Yui screamed back at her.

Mio stood up and yelled over the both of them, "Stop it! You're both acting like children! Yui, it's sweet of you to think about Ton-chan, but you know it's not possible for us to take her along. You don't need to be yelling at her either, Ritsu."

"I know, I know." Yui muttered and collapsed into a chair.

Ritsu sighed and muttered something under her breath, she was feeling more and more like the bad guy of the group. Being the bad guy still beat crying in the corner. So she would continue her role as the tough leader who would get them through this. With that in mind, it was time for her next motivational speech to them.

"Okay, Yui I'm sorry I snapped at you." She began.

"It's okay, I'm not upset." Yui replied, being fully honest. Yui was never upset.

"I know I'm being a bit harsh with you guys, but we really need to take this seriously." Ritsu told them, "The four of us are pretty smart, and stupidity is what kills people in all those movies and books. So as long as we think straight, make smart decisions, and work together; we'll get through this just fine."

"Question." Tsumugi said with a raised hand.

"Shoot."

"Um, in all those movies and books, are the heroes people our age?" Tsumugi asked. That seemed to be a good way to gauge their chances, compare their skills to those of the heroes in zombie fiction.

"Oh no, they're almost always adults with years of police or military training." Ritsu told her.

"You said those movies never have happy endings though, but you just said the characters know how to use guns and stuff." Tsumugi pointed out.

"So?"

"So if they can't make it, how will we?"

It took the drummer a moment to come up with a reply that wouldn't demoralize them even more, "They don't make it because they make a bad decision or something. Or sometimes they start fighting with each other and that gives the zombies an advantage. But we're smart, and we're all close friends, so there shouldn't be any problems."

"So we're going to be okay?" Tsumugi asked, her eyes showed that she was desperately wanted reassurance again.

"Yes we're going to be okay." Ritsu replied with a comforting smile, "Okay, now let's set our escape plan into action. Before we start, Yui, give me Gitah."

"Why?" Yui blinked.

"Because Elizabeth is too heavy, and would probably break after one good swing. Les Pauls are much more durable." She replied.

"What do you mean 'after one good swing'? What are you planning to do with my baby!" Yui cried, she practically leaped across the room to get in between Ritsu and her guitar.

Ritsu sighed, another obstacle she hadn't planned on, "The only way to kill zombies is by heavy blunt force trauma to the brain. Or shooting them, guess which one we have to go with."

"Wait, wait, wait, wait!" Mio interrupted, "You never said anything about killing anyone!"

"Well, we're definitely going to have to take out at least a few to clear a path." Ritsu nonchalantly replied, "Now that that's over, give me the guitar."

"It is most certainly not over!" Mio sternly stated, "Look, I'm not okay with you hurting any of our classmates, even if they're like this!"

"They're not our classmates anymore, they're horrible flesh eating monsters." Ritsu laughed, "Now seriously, give me the guitar."

"No!" Yui cried, and cradled Gitah against her body.

Ritsu growled to herself then gave Yui the verdict, "Okay, I'll give you two options here. Either A. We take your stupid guitar and I use it to brain zombie Satsuki and a few of her undead chumps, or B. You keep it on your back, then Satsuki chews out your fucking throat. Either way, Gitah loses."

"Ritsu!" Mio screamed at her, now the drummer was going too far. Yui sat there and in silence with the guitar in her arms.

"What!" Ritsu shouted back at her, "I don't want to die just because Yui over there doesn't want a dent on her precious guitar! Holy fuck, it's like you three want to die!"

"Stop fighting!" Tsumugi cried out, tears in her eyes again, "Ricchan, you're acting like you said those people in movies act. You know, fighting with each other so that the zombies get an advantage."

Ritsu sighed and grumbled, "You're right. We need to stop bickering with each other. Look, Yui, Mio, I know I sound like a bitch right now...but you need to just listen to me and do as I say."

In a low voice, Yui spoke up, "I'll give you Gitah, but you have to promise that if anything happens to him, you'll help me buy him a brother or sister."

The drummer smiled, "I'll get you a Jackson Double Neck King V, all on me. Now is everyone ready to go?"

Yui reluctantly handed Ritsu the bulky guitar, and nodded. Tsumugi gave a confident nod with her best serious face, while Mio shakily nodded in agreement. The keyboardist took her hand and helped her stand up; intent on keeping that promise of protecting her she made earlier.

"Okay, I'm going out that other door now. When I come back in, open the double doors and run. If there's still a few of them standing around, just push past them. But what ever you do, _do not let them grab you_. Remember, one bite and it's game over."

"Right." The three of them nodded. Ritsu walked across the room, her heart was beating so fast that she was sure the others could hear it. Using her free hand, she unlocked the door and stepped out into the hallway. There was one of her classmates shuffling around there. Ritsu jogged past them, and faced the horde from their right side.

"Over here, free meal right here!" She cried and waved her arm at them. They unleashed a series of hisses and hollow moans, and began shuffling towards her. Ritsu slowly walked backwards, intent on getting as many as them as she could away from the door. That lone girl from the hallway lunged at her, Ritsu jumped back and raised Gitah with both hands.

"Fuck you!" She screamed and brought the instrument down as hard as she could on the shuffling school girl. It connected with a hollow _BAANGGG _that left her hands vibrating, with two of the higher strings snapping on contact. Her target flew backwards with blood spurting out of its ruined face. Ritsu didn't know if that had done enough to destroy the brain, but it had really fucked her up.

That was far enough, she ran back through the open door into the clubroom. The other three gave her a startled look when they saw the blackish blood splattered across her blouse. It was the same color of the mess that had been on Tsumugi's blouse earlier. Stopping for only a second to catch her breath, she ran to the other door and shouted at the rest of them, "Come on, they're going around the other way, let's go!"

With that, she pushed the door open and ran a few meters, then had to call back, "Come on!"

Yui quickly caught up with her, Tsumugi lagged behind with Mio, leading her by the hands Ritsu jumped down a few steps, and much to everyone's disgust, horizontally swung Gitah at Satsuki. Her head twisted backwards completely with a sicking _snap_, as her body flew down the stairs; still twitching as pooled underneath her.

Ritsu ran down the landing, then looked back up at her friends, "Stop staring and come on, you can be upset about this later!"

Although crudely delivered, they realized that the drummer had a point. It was truly kill or be killed at this point, like some twisted nightmare. Maybe that was all this was, just a freaky nightmare brought upon by drinking too much tea. Or maybe someone was sick of them drinking so much tea and slipped something into their drinks. The fact of the matter was, though, they could discuss this kind of thing when they were out of the school full of cannibalistic classmates.

The four of them ran down to the second floor where their schoolmates were randomly shuffling around in and out of classes, or just standing there moaning. They were spread out enough that they could run through down to the next set of stairs. Ritsu motioned them to follow, and they began running, as safely as they could, between the sporadically placed undead. With bravery they all could admire, Ritsu would occasionally use her elbow to smash into one and send them sprawling on the ground. This worked well in clearing a path, and kept Gitah in one piece.

"Oh, fuck..." Ritsu growled, the stairs leading down the first floor had a lot more resistance. Not too many undead girls, but enough that it would be too dangerous to just run through. Luckily there was enough space between them and the hallway zombies for her to clear a path.

"What do we do Ricchan!" Tsumugi desperately asked, she looked back at the solid horde of undead following after them.

"Hold on, get ready to run down these stairs as fast as you can!" She ordered, and hefted up Gitah. Yui cringed in fear at this, amazingly moved more by seeing her instrument used as a weapon, than by the bloodied dead walking towards them. Ritsu assumed she was using escapism to pretend she was in another world or something, because she was taking all of this a lot better than she would have predicted. Tsumugi was trying to be brave for Mio, and Mio...well Mio was behaving like Mio.

With a hefty swing, Ritsu slammed Gitah into the first girl in her path. There was a horrible cracking sound as the skull caved in, and the body rolled down the stairs. Yui flinched each time Gitah sent another one falling down the stairs. The bulky Les Paul had held up, with no serious body damage; but for how long?

When a steady path was cleared, Ritsu called back, "Come on, let's go. What out for the ones on the landing, I don't think many of them are actually put down for good!"

The three girls quickly followed after her, stepping around the crumpled forms of their schoolmates, and the pools of blood that accompanied them. The bottom of the stairs had at least a good 10 meters before the undead horde caught up with them on either side. Ritsu used this as an opportunity to catch her breath. Slaying the lifeless was exhausting work. Everything around her seemed surreal as her numbed hands clutched a now very bloodied guitar.

"I'm going to be sick, I think." Yui moaned and clutched her stomach. Seeing just one too many of her old schoolmates as the walking dead had really taken a lot out of her. So many of them had been chewed apart, and many of the girls who had been sick now had blood smeared around their mouths and hands. It was amazing to think how when they were in their clubroom, a massacre was taking place beneath them.

That thought proved to be too much, and the light cakes she had eaten decided they wanted fresh air again. Ritsu and Tsumugi looked away in disgust and Yui heaved up all those snacks onto the hardwood floor beneath them. Tsumugi cradled an extremely distraught Mio against her chest and gritted her teeth to block out that choking noise that came with vomiting.

"Better?" Ritsu asked the guitarist when she finally was over throwing up.

Yui gave her a shaky smile, "Yeah, thanks for keeping Gitah in one piece too. I needed to change the strings anyways."

"You're doing great Yui, keep it up." Ritsu said and helped her get her feet again. If Yui was mentally damaged by all of this, she was doing a great job hiding it. Tsumugi was desperately trying to appear brave in front of Mio, even if she was on the verge of pissing herself.

Mio pulled her face away from Tsumugi for a moment and whimpered a rather disheartening doomsaying, "We're all going to die."

"Hey, none of that talk!" Ritsu said to her, "We're almost out, it's just a straight line with a few people to beat down."

Mio didn't reply, she only pointed at the corner of the hallway. None of them had noticed the corpse of a soldier who had gone in earlier. His riot gear was ripped apart and his throat chewed out. Apparently the government had known about what was going on, and had sent in something to neutralize it. Or that's what it looked like, so far they hadn't seen any other soldiers.

"How is it that the four of us outlasted that guy?" Ritsu scoffed, "He probably didn't know to shoot them in the head or something."

"How can you be so casual about something like that!" Mio screamed at her.

"Because it's better than crying in the corner like you are!" Ritsu snapped back, Mio flinched but didn't say anything. Because she knew that Ritsu was right. The drummer was trying to take charge of the situation and keep them safe, Mio was just being a sniveling coward. Ritsu stepped over to the body and grimaced a the mess, "Oh-ho-ho, what's this we have here?"

"Ricchan, I don't think you should disturb him..." Yui whined from behind her. She was thinking about how in zombie movies people bitten would come back to life as one too. And here Ritsu was standing right next to a potential undead. Ritsu ignored her and crouched down to pick up something next to him. A silenced FN P-90 SMG. "Fuck yes!"

"Can we go now, please?" Yui pleaded. Ritsu nodded and handed her Gitah back. In other circumstances one of them would have probably pointed out how they were getting annoyed by Ritsu's constant use of the word "fuck" now. But there were other things that required their attention right now.

"Wait, when have you ever fired a gun? You're going to kill one of with that thing!" Mio complained at her.

Ritsu looked up at the stairs they had just come down, the undead were starting to catch up at the top, "Hey, we need to get going. We can discuss my use of firearms later."

With that she found the safety switch and flicked it off and to semi-automatic. Like a soldier from a video game or something, she held the SMG against her shoulder, feeling at least 450% more bad ass. She had to make sure not to waste ammo though, since all she had was the clip that came with the weapon. And there was no telling how much ammo was left in that. "Well, let's get going!"

"Wait!" Yui cried out.

"There's not time for waiting, let's go!" Ritsu yelled back at her, and prepared to begin their charge through the dead.

"What about Sawa-chan and Nodoka-chan? They could still be here!" Yui told her.

"Then we'll come back for them or something, we have to go now!" Ritsu desperately replied, the undead were almost down the stairs. All of them were grateful for just how slow they were. It made not getting eaten a lot easier. But it left the question, "how did everyone else get torn apart so easily, including the military guys?"

Yui was right behind Ritsu, not planning to use her instrument as a weapon though. Tsumugi was holding Mio's hand and leading her along. Ritsu didn't fire her newly found weapon, and didn't need to either. Just pistol-whipping them was enough to cause them to stagger back or fall down. That age old question of, "Could you survive a zombie apocalypse?" was finally answered for the drummer. It's answer being, "Yes, and I could do it easily". Those double doors that lead outside were looming closer and closer.

Mio made a horrible mistake though, she opened her eyes and got a passing glance of one of the classrooms. Two German shepherds were tearing away at a zombie they had pinned. Since what Ritsu had said was true, only destroying the head could put them down for good, all the dogs were managed to do was turn the monster inside out. Mio shut her eyes and tried to think of happy things, or else she would end up vomiting like Yui had. Tsumugi didn't need anymore of that on her today either.

Ritsu dramatically kicked open the doors and ran outside, there were a few straggling undead, but she could easily avoid them. What was scary, was the fact that several of them had riot gear on, so even the police had fallen. It was then that Ritsu noticed that they weren't the Japanese military, they had patches that read, "NATO" in English. Whatever that meant.

"Japan isn't part of the North Atlantic Trade Agreement." Tsumugi murmured as she led Mio past those soldiers.

The other three sprinted past the shambling dead to the end of the schoolyard, a good distance away from the dead.

Ritsu jumped and cheered, "FUCK YES! We rule, no zombies can take us down!"

"We...We did it..." Mio said in disbelief. Ritsu's cheers were infectious, soon she was laughing despite everything. Yui and Tsumugi joined in, it would be probably be the only thing to celebrate for a long time.

"Okay, Ricchan, where do we go now?" Tsumugi asked her.

Ritsu sat down against the outside wall of the school's gym and thought it over, "We need to stick together, that's for sure. But I want to go home and make sure my brother is okay."

"Can't you just call him, or text him like I've been doing with Ui?" Yui suggested.

Ritsu shook her head, "Forgot my cellphone in the clubroom, and I don't remember our home phone number off the top of my head. What about you Mio, what do you think we should do?"

"My house is far away, I don't know if it would be a safe place to go to." Mio sighed.

Tsumugi was about to put in her opinion when Yui interrupted her, "Look, it's one of those doggies from before!"

Sure enough one of the German Shepherds that "NATO" had with them was trotting along the schoolyard. A strip of flesh was hanging from its mouth. When Yui pointed its presence out, it noticed them as well.

Ritsu stood up to get a better view, "Do you think it's a good dog? It doesn't look zombified."

"Dogs can be zombies too?" Tsumugi gasped.

"Only in video games, so I think it's safe." Ritsu replied. The fact that it was sprinting at them while barking didn't exactly scream _safe_. Still, Ritsu smiled, "Don't worry, I know how to act around dogs. They're always more bark than bi-"

Her sentence was cut off as a hundred pounds of fur and teeth threw itself at her. The commands its late masters had given it left the animal confused to who was friend or foe. After seeing its master torn apart by girls who were dressed like Ritsu was, it saw her as a threat.

"Ricchan!" Yui and Tsumugi screamed in unison, Mio was too afraid to even open her eyes. Ritsu tried to grab the dogs muzzle or throat to push it away, but it quickly snapped past her hands and bit down on the side of her head. She screamed as the dog snarled and began tearing away at her right ear. Pain like nothing she had ever known surfaced as the dog tore her ear away and began biting away at the side of her head.

_BAANNGGG!_

The dog hit the side of the gym just after Yui sacrificed Gitah to save Ritsu. After all the trauma the guitar had gone through, the neck finally snapped, and the body fell off. There would be time for mourning later though.

Fighting through that horrible pain that wracked the side of her head, Ritsu stood up and grasped her P-90 with both hands and open fired on the police dog. 9mm rounds sprayed into the dog's side, and even a few parts of its head. After only firing three times, the dog was torn apart. Ritsu dropped the weapon and slumped against the doors the gym. Blood was flowing from what used to be her ear, staining her school uniform. She was too afraid to press a hand against it, because she didn't want to feel what was left of her ear.

Before Yui or Tsumugi could come to her aid, one of the gymnasium doors burst open. Three of their undead schoolmates threw themselves on Ritsu.

The drummer screamed and wildly kicked her feet and cold hands pressed her down, and teeth tore away at the flesh just above her right breast. She pushed the zombie's head away from her, a sizable chunk of her own bloody flesh came with it; the ripping sound that came with it was almost grisly enough to make her pass out then and there. Since she had her hand pushing the zombie's head away, another one saw this as a perfect opportunity to bite down on the back of her hand. Ritsu was also vaguely aware that one was biting at her shin. It was hard to keep up with what hurt where.

_It's all over, I'm infected now. All because of one stupid fucking dog..._ Were her thoughts as Tsumugi and Yui pulled her away from the undead. The one that had gotten her hand managed to get away with her pinky. With Ritsu over their shoulders, Yui and Tsumugi began running towards the street.

"Come on!" Yui screamed back at Mio, who was standing there, too afraid to move.

"Take her for a moment." Tsumugi told Yui, and let the drummer go. Yui managed to hold Ritsu up as Tsumugi went back and grabbed Mio by the wrist just before the undead got to her.

Even with Yui practically having to drag a screaming Ritsu, they still managed to easily outrun the three undead who had torn the drummer apart. Ritsu, after going through all of that, was in hysterics, "Fuck, shit, fuck, why did this happen to me! I'm the one who knows everything about zombies, people like me don't die! Why is God such a fucking cunt! Is this because I didn't ever go to Church? Well fuck that, I don't need to blindly devote my life to some omnipotent presence. And if he sends zombies to eat me then he's not a loving god. FUCK EVERYTHING!"

"Where do we go!" Tsumugi asked as they blindly made their way down the street, evading the occasional undead.

"We need to get help for Ricchan!" Yui replied, using all her willpower to stop from crying, "Azu-nyan lives right by here, there has to be first aid in her house."


	3. Death Panorama

**THE DEAD MUSIC CLUB CHAPTER 3- DEATH PANORAMA**

"Why are you still carrying me, let me go!" Ritsu sobbed. She still kept her arms around Yui as the guitarist carried her though.

"No, we're going to get you help at Azu-nyan's house!" Yui adamantly said.

"Don't bring her into this..." The drummer whimpered, "Tell Satoshi that Onee-chan loves him very much..."

"You'll tell him yourself, you're going to be fine!" Yui argued, "You're just a little cut up, but you haven't lost _that _much blood." Mio instinctively cringed at the word "blood".

"Whatever, just put me down...I can walk." Ritsu instructed. Yui carefully set Ritsu down on her feet. She wavered a moment, but was able to stand. One hand was pressed against her chest wound, and her chewed up hand was wrapped in the fabric of her blouse. Although she was limping, she managed to keep up with them. Azusa's home was only a few blocks away, they could easily make it. Although Ritsu didn't like the fact that they were now completely unarmed...and that she had been bitten three times...

"Mio-chan..." She turned around and said to the bassist, blood trickled from her lips as she spoke. It had taken on a darker tint now.

"Y-yes?" Mio whispered, trying desperately not to look at her torn up body.

"You were right there, why didn't you pull me away from those fucking things when they opened the door!" Ritsu growled at her.

"What?" She blinked.

"You were right there!" Ritsu stepped forward to meet her eye to eye. Mio turned her head to avoid seeing all the blood on Ritsu. "Look at me damn it! You were right there, you could have pulled me away in time!"

"I couldn't-"

"Yes you could have! Stop being such a fucking pussy and contribute to the group. If you hadn't had just stood there, I wouldn't be like this!" Ritsu ranted on.

Mio was crying now, she fell to her knees and place her hands over her ears, "Stop it, it's not my fault!"

"Whatever, fuck you, but when I turn; I'm coming for you first. You should have been the who got ripped up, _not _me." Ritsu sneered, what she had said left them in stunned silence. They walked on towards Azusa's house in silence, what Ritsu had said was dwelling heavily on their shoulders. If this was a true zombie outbreak like Ritsu had assumed, then she would become one of them eventually. It just wasn't something any of them could accept. Her blaming of Mio didn't make anyone feel any better either. A human couldn't live with something like that on their conscious.

Yui went ahead and left Azusa text message telling her that they needed help and a place to stay. Azusa said it was alright, and given the circumstances, she would be glad to help however she could.

**AZUSA**

In hindsight, staying home that day was a miraculous decision on her part. After watching the news, and what Yui had relayed to her, it was quite literally the end of the world. But she was relatively safe at home, sitting on her couch with her father's old shotgun across her lap. The news had told her that people infected with the disease were not human anymore, but it didn't make her feel any better about what she had to do to her neighbors.

Even if they would have no doubt killed her given the chance, Azusa still felt like she had murdered two humans. Pushing that thought aside, she replaced the two shells in the shotgun and hoped that she wouldn't have to use the weapon again.

But now her senpai's were coming over to stay with her, that was good. Her house was easily defensible, and there was plenty of food. Plus that soul crushing loneliness of being there alone would be gone. There was a rap on the sliding glass door, which Azusa hoped was her senpai's. She picked up the shotgun just in case it was few unruly neighbors that had figured she was in there.

She breathed a heavy sigh of relief when she saw Mio and Yui standing on the other side of the glass. Azusa slid open the door and let them in.

"Azu-nyan, why are you wearing your shoes on inside?" Was the first thing Yui said to her. Same old Yui. But something was wrong, Mio looked absolutely heartbroken about something.

"Where are Tsumugi-senpai and Ritsu-senpai?" Azusa asked them, ignoring Yui's question and placed the shotgun on the kitchen counter. She had her shoes on in case she needed to get away from her house quickly. On the news she had seen cases of "fast" zombies who could sprint at full human speeds. Running barefoot down a gravel driveway would probably prove to be detrimental.

"Tsumugi and Ritsu are lagging behind. Ritsu is...not well." Mio whispered, she looked around the darkness of Azusa's home, "Are you parents here? I would love adult leadership right now."

Azusa stared at the floor and shook her head, "No, they're not here right now." She raised her head and saw Tsumugi working as a crutch for Ritsu as they walked across her backyard. Azusa stifled a scream, Ritsu looked absolutely _butchered_. Half her face was dyed red with her blood, which was encrusted all around her hair. One of the infected had gotten a good bite out of her shin, and part of her chest. Judging by the blood on Ritsu's arm, Azusa was glad that she couldn't see her hand.

She opened the door, and realized the choice she would have to give them. From what the news had said, people bitten would become infected as well. As much as she liked Ritsu, Azusa knew there was no way that she could let that bloody mess into her home; her sanctuary.

"Azu-nyan...how's it going?" Ritsu coughed.

"Tsumugi, set Ritsu-senpai on the bench there." Azusa instructed and pointed at the picnic bench that decorated her yard.

"But Ricchan needs first-aid!" Tsumugi protested.

With tears in her eyes, Azusa shook her head, "I can't let her in here. You know what would happen to us if I did."

"Ricchan will die if we just leave her out here!" Tsumugi cried out, tears of her own were running down her face. Her bravery was running out now, "Why are you making her stay out here!"

Ritsu pushed herself away from Tsumugi and laid down on the grass, "It's okay Mugi-chan, just let me rest for a bit."

"No, you need first-aid!" The keyboardist desperately tried to pull her inside. Ritsu shrugged her aside and continued to lay on her back.

"You were always an amazing friend Tsumugi-san, always so much fun to be around." Ritsu said with a smile, and closed her eyes. Tears formed a clear path down the blood on her face.

"Don't talk like that!"

"It's okay, I kind of expected this to happen when Yui first said zombie, people like us never live to the end. Oh, speaking of which, can you go fetch her?" The bloody wreck of Ritsu asked. Tsumugi nodded and quickly returned with the guitarist. It was the least she could do if Ritsu couldn't go inside.

"Why are you still out here, come inside so we can get you bandages and tea." Yui asked as soon as she stepped outside. Azusa had to wonder just which was more important in Yui's world.

"I'm going to hang out here for a while." Ritsu told her, "Gah, I've never been good at goodbyes, so don't fault me."

"What do you mean goodbyes? No one's going anywhere." Yui asked her. Ritsu sighed, wishing that Yui had caught on to her soon-to-be-undead condition.

"Azu-nyan, you know what's going on, you tell her." Ritsu told the younger guitarist. She knew Azusa had a brief idea of what was going on just because she had barred her from her house.

The junior had no idea how to explain to Yui, and no doubt Tsumugi and Mio, about the whole "infection" aspect of Ritsu's wounds. She looked up at the sky, which was now a pale gray since it had stopped raining awhile ago. Azusa kept thinking she would wake up at any moment, today had to be a dream. You didn't just wake up and all of a sudden half the people you once knew were now infected undead monsters.

"Ritsu-senpai is sick..." Azusa whispered to Yui, Tsumugi barely heard her, "She's sick and we need to keep her out here, so we don't get sick too." Now she was crying, the concept of losing a friend like that just didn't seem real. None of this seemed real.

"Does she have the flu, like the others had?" Tsumugi asked. Azusa nodded as Mio joined them in the yard. The keyboardist took a deep breath and went on, "Does that mean she's going to be like..._them_?"

"She figured it out." Ritsu muttered, then rolled over on her side to cough up more blackish blood. She looked up at Mio and smiled, "You should go inside, it's not safe out here. A zombie's gonna see you and then there will be a lot more of them."

"Not without you." Mio sternly told her.

"I'm sick now, you should go inside." Ritsu meekly replied. It was getting harder and harder to talk, but at least that horrible pain had subsided. Now she just felt lightheaded and a little hungry. Luckily Mio wasn't looking tasty yet.

"I can't just leave you like this!" Mio cried out.

"We have to..." Tsumugi sighed, once again trying to be brave in front of Mio. They argued it for a good ten minutes before Azusa and Tsumugi had to drag Mio back inside. Yui slowly followed after them and took one last look into the gloomy over cast.

"Goodbye Ricchan..."

**ONE DOWN, FOUR TO GO**

Tsumugi, Azusa, and Yui sat in the living room in complete silence. All they could do was stare at their feet, nobody could muster the courage to say anything. The only sound was Mio sobbing uncontrollably in the restroom.

The blonde-haired keyboardist could only dwell on how confident Ritsu had been when they got out of the school. But then some police dog had lost its shit and ruined everything. They had also left Gitah and the SMG behind too, the only weapon they had left was the shotgun Azusa had somehow obtained. Speaking of which, "Azusa-chan, how many bullets are left in the shotgun?"

"Shells. Shotguns fire shells." Azusa corrected her, "But my father had a box of them in case...well, I don't know why he had them. My guess is that-"

"How many shells are there though?" Tsumugi interrupted her. With Ritsu gone the keyboardist decided she would have to be the strong leader here. No more fluffy air-headed Mugi-chan.

"Oh, six, not including the two in there right now." Azusa replied.

"What about things to hit them with? we were using Gitah earlier." Was her next question. Yui sighed heavily at the sad memories of her instrument.

"There's a tool shed out back. It has stuff like shovels, gardening tools, maybe a hammer or something." Azusa shrugged. "The keys out on the rack near the back door. Oh, do you want anything to eat or drink?"

"Tea please!" Yui piped up. Same old Yui.

"Coming up." Azusa got up and bowed. She walked into the kitchen, through the sliding glass door she could see Ritsu air drumming with her one good hand and leg. The guitarist gave her a gentle wave before covering the door with the blinds. If Ritsu "became" one of them, Azusa didn't want to see her stumbling through her backyard.

In the living room Yui decided to discuss their options with Tsumugi, "With Ricchan...gone... I think you should be our new leader."

Tsumugi's eyes sparkled and shined like stars, "Really? You want _me _to be the leader of our group?"

Yui nodded, "You're smart and can make good decisions that will make us safe. And you're not afraid like Mio-chan is."

The keyboardist puffed out her chest in pride, "I will do my best to keep you all safe."

Azusa returned with a plate of teacups filled with unsweatened tea. She knew Yui would bitch about that, but she was _beyond _caring about something like that. When she set the plate down on the low table, Mio finally joined the living. Her face was red and her eyes were puffy, but she wasn't sobbing uncontrollably anymore. The first thing she said when she sat down, "We're all going to die."

"Fucking thanks." Azusa growled and practically shoved a teacup into her hands, "Shut up and drink your god damned tea."

"You're not very happy, are you Azu-nyan?" Yui asked her.

Azusa growled out a long angry sigh, "No, Yui-senpai, I am most certainly not. One of my best friends is dying out in my backyard, how am I supposed to feel! What happened to her anyway!"

"Police dog." Tsumugi curtly and quietly replied.

"There's infected dogs!" Azusa gasped. Infected animals would certainly lower their chances of survival

"No, the dog opened a window of opportunity." Yui quietly answered for her. She had to bite down on her lower lip to stop herself from breaking down like Mio had. All she could think about was Ritsu laughing and smiling to the very end, so confident about them getting out alive. It just wasn't fair, good people like Ricchan didn't go out like that.

"Now what do we do?" Tsumugi asked them, she had her head down with her fingers through her hair. Any confidence she had about them surviving this had gone the same way as Ritsu.

"I don't know how long we can stay here." Azusa admitted, "Unless NATO gets their stuff together and fixes this, there's only going to be more and more infected. So it won't be long until they show up at my door here. Not to mention I only have about a weeks worth of food... that's assuming the power stays on and I can use the electric oven. There's supposed to be a few shelters, but I don't know where they would be at..."

"How could they already have shelters up if this just started today?" Mio asked her.

Azusa just shrugged, "I guess this was already happening in Okinawa and a few other places. But they kind of kept that secret until it started breaking out in cities today like Tokyo, Beijing, Seattle, Ontario, the list goes on."

"Wait, this is happening all over the world!" Mio gasped, then felt like she was about to have an asthma attack...which was odd because she didn't have asthma.

"That's what the news said, but the television stations went down a few hours ago." Azusa told them.

"This is just happening too fast, today started out just like any other. Why didn't we get any warning?" Mio rhetorically asked.

"Well, I had warning. That's why I stayed home today." Azusa replied.

"How did you know! I thought you were staying home with your parents."

"Well I was and I wasn't. People on Futaba Channel already knew about this, because that's how the internet works." She explained.

Mio looked almost enraged, "Wait, you knew about this and you didn't tell anyone!"

Azusa stood up and put her hands at her side, "Hey, what was I supposed to tell you! 'Oh hey, infected zombies might show up and eat you. Better stay home'? You would have laughed at me, and you know it. I was planning on staying home all week, and if by the end of it there was no sign of the infected reaching here them I would have gone back."

"So your paranoia kept you safe." Tsumugi concluded.

"Pretty much." Azusa shrugged.

"Well if we're safe here, then there's no real reason to leave is there?" Another intelligent conclusion from the Muginator.

"I guess not." Azusa agreed, "But we should probably stay upstairs for the most part, keep the doors locked with the shades down. Oh yeah, and we have to make sure not to make any noise. If they hear us then they'll start moaning and and others will catch on. One last thing, they _can _easily break windows."

"Maybe we should, you know, have 'weapons' ready in case they do break in." Yui suggested. They three of them nodded and agreed on that.

Tsumugi was the one to volunteer, "I'll go grab the key and get a few shovels or something. Those should work if things go bad."

"It's the one on the far left, the one by itself." Azusa told her. The keyboardist nodded and got up to go retrieve them a few makeshift weapons.

"So what do we do now?" Mio spoke up.

Yui and Azusa just shrugged and muttered under their breaths. There really wasn't any thing _to do_ there. All they could do was wait around until they ran out of supplies and could move onto another house. Then something suddenly struck Yui, "Ui! I can't just leave her alone at my house!"

"Ah, I forgot all about Ui!" Mio frustratedly said too.

"Do you think we should go get her, wait, how safe do you think your house is Yui-senpai?" Azusa asked and suggested.

Yui thought for a moment, "Well, it has a lot of stairs, and the zombies are bad at stairs-"

"Please don't say the word _zombie_, they're not zombies." Mio interrupted.

"Fine, the _infected _are bad at stairs." Yui corrected herself, "So I think Ui would be safe if she stayed up in her room maybe. There's lots of food too."

"Do your parents own any guns or things like that?" Azusa asked.

Yui shook her head, "No, not that I know of. But maybe it would be a good idea to go stay at my house instead."

Azusa definitely agreed, "Yes, I myself would feel much better there."

Mio eyed her curiously, "You would feel better crossing a town full of infected monsters with only 8 shotgun shells?"

"And shovels too." Yui noted.

"Yes." Azusa nodded, and tried to avoid contact with Mio. The bassist knew she was hiding something, but that wasn't something she wanted to get into. A lot of things in Azusa's story didn't add up. She claimed to be staying home to take care of her sick parents...wait, _sick parents_.

"Hold on Azusa, where did you say your parents were again?" Mio asked, she spoke so fast that she was tripping over her words.  
Azusa's eyes darted back and forth, "They're not here right now."

"But you said you were taking care of them while they were sick." Mio reminded her.

"I did, but-"

"They weren't sick with the flu were they?"

Azusa was about to defend herself when a loud scream from the other side of the house made all of them jump out of their seats in surprise. Too afraid to even go into another room alone, Azusa had been holding her urge to use the restroom in for some time. The burst of surprise left a rather embarrassing damp spot between her legs.

Still, she was the first one up, running towards the kitchen. Yui and Mio were right behind her. The blinds were still over the screen door, so vision was blocked, but it had been Tsumugi's scream, no doubt about that. As Azusa was grabbing the shotgun from the kitchen counter, she instantly realized a literally fatal mistake she had made. She had let Tsumugi go out there _alone_.

Yui pulled back the blinds and screamed as soon as she saw what was behind them. Ritsu, or what had formally been Ritsu, had Tsumugi pressed against the glass. With her cold, dead hands pinning the keyboardist against the glass by the wrists, she had full access to do whatever she pleased with her teeth. Those teeth were ripping and tearing away at the flesh of the keyboardists neck, spraying blood all over the glass in thick splatters. It didn't take an anatomy major to realize that she had gotten her carotid artery with a hellishly lucky bite.

It took a moment to get past the initial panic, but Tsumugi's screams of pain were enough to break Yui's momentary stasis. She pulled the screen door open and grabbed Tsumugi out of the undead arms of Ritsu. The ex-drummers teeth came away with a sizable chuck of flesh with a sickening ripping sound. Tsumugi's blood sprayed against Yui's blouse as she practically threw her into Mio's arms.

Mio caught Tsumugi, and for once she managed to do something useful. She worked like a crutch to lead Tsumugi to the restroom where she could at least attempt to help her. The bassist had taken a class in first aid back in middle school, but she didn't know how much that would help a potentially fatal injury.

Meanwhile, with her old meal gone, Ritsu focused her dead eyes on Yui. The guitarist slowly stepped back. Sadly, Ritsu was between her and the two shovels and crowbar Tsumugi had tried to bring back. That whole "zombies are slow" thing instantly disappeared as Ritsu sprinted full speed at Yui. Her dead weight sent Yui flying on her back. She put her hands up to grab Ritsu's face to stop her from biting her. It worked, but she couldn't get her undead friend off of her.

Ritsu snapped at her over and over again, biting the air in front of Yui's face. Yui had to turn her face away since with each bite, blackish blood and bile would spill out of Ritsu's mouth and onto her face. And some of that had managed to get into her mouth too, which was not a pleasant taste to say the least.

Azusa used her free hand to pull Ritsu off of Yui. The dead were not coordinated, so Ritsu fell on her back right next to Yui. The undead version of Ritsu quickly tried to embrace Yui again, but the guitarist was on her feet in an instant. So was Ritsu.

Yui prepared to fend of the next attack, but as Ritsu was jumping at her; there was a deafening _**BAANNGGG! **_as Azusa pulled down both triggers of the shotgun. Yui watched in horrified amazement as Ritsu's head, and most of her right arm pretty much disappeared. Blackish blood exploded outward from the wounds, and sprayed against Yui, getting in her eyes. That proved to be a boon since she closed her eyes and didn't have to watch the remains of Ritsu's corpse spray even more blood against her. Although she certainly felt it splatter against her body.


	4. Among Two Storms

**THE DEAD MUSIC CLUB CHAPTER 4- AMONG TWO STORMS**

Azusa's emotions were a mix of crippling sorrow and bitter anger. Losing potentially two friends like that was devastating. Then there was the thought of how none of that would have happened if they hadn't stopped at her house. All she could think about was how none of this would have happened if if they had never stopped there.

Yui was sitting across from her, silently staring at the floor. The younger guitarist could only guess what was going on in her senpai's head. She couldn't imagine any nice thoughts there. Her senpai noticed her staring and said to her, "I think Mugi-chan's tea is getting cold."

_So that's what's going on in her mind. She hasn't accepted any of this I bet, _the twin tailed girl thought, but didn't reply in anyway. Chances were that there wasn't anything that she could say that wouldn't be disastrous at this point. It wouldn't have surprised Azusa if Yui still considered Ritsu alive.

It was then that Mio stepped out of the restroom. Neither Yui or Azusa had much faith in Mio's first-aid abilities, but they were desperately trying to be pessimistic about it. The blood all up Mio's arms and blouse, and the stricken look on her face didn't exactly reassure them. They still had earned a degree of respect for her after she got past her fear of blood and tried to help Tsumugi. Now they were awaiting the results.

Without saying a word, Mio sat down next to Yui. The latter handed Mio a white towel, which was stained red from where Yui had used it to wipe her face off. Mio took it and wiped all the crimson off her arms. The bassist sighed and looked up at both of them, who were eagerly awaiting some kind of news.

"She...she kept saying, 'You're so brave Mio-chan, I could never work around all this blood', and then other things like, 'I wanted to be a good leader, but I didn't do a good job, did I?' Then I told her that she did a great job, and that she would keep doing a good job because she was going to be alright." Mio paused than took what could only be described as a swig of her cold tea. With that out of the way, she went on, "I tried to keep telling her that she was going to be fine, and that none of her arteries had been torn. That was a lie of course, she had lost _a lot _of blood. She knew this too, but she kept smiling and saying that she thought I was cool, and that she had always wanted to be as cool as me. Then she stopped breathing..."

**TWO DOWN, THREE TO GO.**

Azusa's fingers curled up into a fist, a fist that pounded once at her thigh. She stood up, breathing in haggard gasps, and screamed out, "_Not Mugi-chan. NOT FUCKING MUGI-CHAN!"_

"Oh God, we have get out of here..." Yui muttered towards the floor. All traces of her old jolly self were gone. She didn't even flinch when Azusa picked up what should have been Tsumugi's teacup and smashed it against the wall. A few of its cold droplets pelted her hair, but that wasn't worth caring about, "We really have to get out of here..."

"How many shells did you fire, Azusa?" Mio quietly asked when it looked like the younger guitarist had calmed down, or at least was over throwing things.

"Why does it matter?" She sobbed and threw herself back on the couch.

"We'll need the ammo if we're still planning on going regroup with Ui." Mio told her.

Azusa rolled over so they wouldn't see her crying, "I pulled both triggers, so there's six left in the box. It doesn't matter, we'll die if we go out there. The news said there would be faster zombies, but they said they were really rare; like a thousand to one. Just _one _managed to kill Tsumugi-senpai. What if we find more?"

"How was she supposed to know that Ritsu would come back like that?" Mio began to sob as well. Only Yui managed to keep herself together, with no small effort on her part.

She shook her head, and tried to control her frantically shaking hands, "I...I have to get out of this house, I need to go find my baby sister. I just have to get out of here."

Mio wiped her tears with the sleeve of her uniform. Yui stood up, and she tugged at the hem of her shirt, "Wait, Yui, let me come too. I promise I won't be like I was before. No more cowering, no more crying. Just don't leave me here."

"Me too." Azusa said as well, and wiped her tears away too, "I can't stay here either, there's too many ghosts."

A tiny little sound silenced the three of them. It was a faint little scratching noise. Azusa mouthed, _what is that? _But the other two girls just shrugged, it could have been anything. Then it hit the three of them together at once- It was the sound of a fingernail scraping against a door...

"Let's go, _right now_." Azusa quickly said and grabbed the shotgun off the table. Yui and Mio were right behind her. They followed her into the backyard where those weapons Tsumugi had died to get for them were. It would have been blasphemous to just leave them behind. Azusa took the crowbar, while the other two took the shovels.

They took solace in the fact that most people had the decency to not die out on the streets. So the undead were few and far between as they quickly crossed town, eyes peeled for any faster zombies. The few cars that passed them occasionally did wonders to reinstate how sudden this had all been. Certainly they weren't the last three on earth, but it sure felt like it. There were only a few other people on the street, but they mutually ignored one another.

"There." Yui said and pointed a sizable corner store.

"What about there?" Azusa asked, annoyed by the sudden stop. They were close, and she didn't appreciate the halt.

"Can we stop so I can pick up milk and honey, Ui wanted me to get some when I had the chance. And hey, it looks like I have the chance." Yui relayed to her.

Azusa sighed and rolled her eyes, "You're kidding right?"

"She was going to make cake with them. I don't know about you, but cake sounds pretty good right now." Yui replied, being fully serious.

Azusa was about to say something a little condescending when Mio spoke up first, "Yes, let's just be careful though. A store isn't the same as being out on the road, it's bound to be more dangerous."

The younger guitarist grumbled, but ultimately went along. This was stupid, reckless, and more than anything _dangerous_. She could understand why Yui wanted to stop there, it was a brief reminder of normality. So much had been lost in one day, and now they were taking the chance to cling on to something of their normal lives. It made Azusa wonder just how different things would be after SAT finally stepped in and cleared all the infected out. Would they still be friends afterwords? Would they be able to look into each others eyes without thinking of Ritsu and Tsumugi?

"Oh my god..." Mio said to herself when they passed the corpses of two bitten up employees. There was a bullet wound in between each of there eyes. Someone had been here already. Yui quickly went ahead and found what she was looking for, while Mio casually glanced through soft drinks.

"What are you two doing?" Azusa deadpanned as she saw Mio and Yui put up milk, honey, and a 20oz bottle of Dr. Pepper. They looked back at her, then realized what they were doing.

Mio was picking her drink back up when she noticed something, "Hey someones back there with all the prescriptions!"

"It it an actual person?" Azusa asked her.

A female voice replied from behind the counter, "Yes I'm an actual person!"

"Jun-chan!" Azusa recognized that voice in an instant. She ran over across the bloodstained tile floor to the counter. Sure enough Jun was there with a plastic bag full of pill bottles and snacks. In her other hand was a M9 civilian sidearm.

"Azusa-chan? W-what are you doing here!" Jun excitedly asked and put the gun and bag down to go around and give the guitarist a hug.

"I was going to ask you the same thing, I heard that Ui-chan took you home because of the flu. I kind of expected the worse, but here you are!" Azusa replied and hugged her back, laughing the whole way.

Jun laughed and scratched the back of her head, "Oh, I just made that whole flu thing to get out of class. From what Ui-chan sent me in text messages, it sounds like that was a good thing. She told me that Yui-senpai and the others had to run through a whole bunch of zombies!"

Yui and Mio silently nodded, it was then that Jun noticed that Mio's blouse was splattered with blood. Then there was Yui, who looked like she had bathed in the stuff. It was on her clothes, arms, dried in her hair, dried around her eyebrows. Jun let Azusa go and pointed a shaky finger at Yui, "Just how much of that blood is yours!"

The guitarist blinked, "Oh, none of it."

Jun gave her a suspicious look, and slowly reached towards the pistol. Mio quickly grabbed Jun's wrist and gave her a calming smile, "She's not lying, and I'm not bitten either. Look, we've been through a lot. Yui's home isn't too far away, so we're going to stay there until it's safe."

"I just came back from that way, it's zombie city." Jun replied with a shake of her head, "I don't know what happened, but a lot of people must have gotten infected back there or something. Because they're everywhere, so I wouldn't exactly recommend heading in that direction."

"But...Ui." Yui whispered. Her fingers curled up into fists around the hem of her skirt, "I don't care how many of them there are, I got to get to Ui!"

"She's safe where she's at now. Why don't you come with me to the arcade downtown, one of my friends in the Jazz Club said it's safe there. They're staying in the back where there's all this pizza made, the zombies can't get to them there." Jun told Yui.

Yui shook her head, "No, I can't leave Ui alone. You all can go there, but I have to make sure Ui is safe."

Mio looked particularly conflicted, "It's going to be like the school again isn't it? Lots of them... Maybe the arcade isn't a bad idea..."

"I'm not leaving Ui alone!" Yui cried.

"Maybe...maybe..." Azusa muttered, trying to think of something that would please everyone. All eyes were on her, "Perhaps Yui-senpai could go get Ui-chan by herself then...Wait, do you know where the arcade is Yui-senpai?"

Yui nodded, "If I have to go get Ui myself, then I'll do it. I don't need any help."

Mio sighed, "It can't be helped then, send us a text message when you get there. Let us know if you made it safe."

"Gotcha." Yui quickly nodded. With milk and honey in hand, she bounded off into the road with a shovel over her shoulder.

Azusa felt her knees give out for a moment, causing her to slump against the counter. Tears were flowing freely, "We're never going to see her again, are we?"

Mio helped her back up, "Don't say that, Yui knows what she's doing. Nothing bad will happen to her."

Jun picked up her gun and bag again, "Oh, by the way, what are Tsumugi-senpai and Ritsu-senpai up to?"

Struggling to hold back insane laughter that was brewing in her chest; Mio gave an awkward smile and replied, "Oh you know, eating red cereals."

**YUI'S STORY**

At first Yui thought, _Hey there aren't that many zombies_, compared to the school at least. But when she started crossing into the thick suburbs where she lived, they became a lot more plentiful. So far, from what they had dealt with, evading the dead was a simple task. They would follow you until you were out of there line of sight then give up. It made her wonder just why some many people had gotten bitten up.

Then again, if Ritsu wasn't with them, how would they have known that they were zombies? How many people would be bold enough to instantly consider them zombies? In that sense, Ritsu had probably saved their lives...minus Tsumugi.

The image of the keyboardist's blonde hair and bright bubbly eyes sent an unexpected surge of anger throughout Yui; something she had never felt before. A zombie was straight in her path, instead of evading it she wildly swung the shovel at its face. The rusted metal blade went straight through the monster's head, and stopped about half way. Yui's exploded with numbness when the blade abruptly stopped, with the milk and honey nearly falling out the bag on her shoulder. Feeling no remorse, she used her foot to pry the shovel out of its skull.

Now it was time to really get moving, she had caught the attention of the horde. Every shambling infected person down the street turned and began shuffling towards her. Without thinking, she ran through them, swinging the shovel wildly and managing to actually permanently take down a few. All she could focus on was getting to her baby sister, and generally not dying.

Her house came into view, and most of the horde was behind her. For the first time in a while, things were starting to look up. Putting one foot in front of the other as fast as she could, Yui sprinted onwards. _Oh no, they're around the house_.

Apparently they had found out that Ui was there or something, because there were four of them just on her driveway; with more out on the road. Her two options were to narrowly avoid them and throw herself inside, or stay out there and kill them first. The former seemed like best option because killing them would give the other ones a chance to catch up...and Yui didn't particularly like killing.

So she quickly weaved threw them and threw herself at the door, desperately twisting the knob back and forth. It was only then that Yui remembered she had told her sister to lock all the doors. Without thinking, she banged the door as hard as she could with her fists, "Ui, let Onee-chan in!"

Suddenly, that didn't seem like such a great idea, now five infected were shambling towards her. Yui quickly set the milk and honey down, then elbowed the door again several times as she raised up the shovel to defend herself. One heavy swing left her first attackers face into a bloody ruin, and the second one was going to face a similar fate.

Upstairs, it took Ui a moment to realize just what that sound was. After spending an agonizing several hours having to listen to the undead hiss, moan, and growl at nothing; her nerves were shot. When she first heard her sisters voice and that banging noise, she didn't react at first. Then it hit her, and she was sprinting downstairs in her socks.

Like Yui, she had forgotten that the door was locked and she was uselessly twisting the knob for a full second before unlocking it. When she unlocked the door and opened it inside, Yui ended up slamming the door into Ui, pressing her against the wall, as she stumbled inside. Yui tried to close the door again, but a particularly eager undead was blocking the way.

Ui had the misfortune of having to watch her sister beat the brain of what used to be one of their neighbors; a nice boy who would bring them their mail occasionally. Now his blood was being splattered against the walls of their home, and against Yui as well. Yui tried to close the door again, but his body was jamming the doorway. After using the shovel a bit, she managed to get it closed and locked before too many undead caught on to their whereabouts. But Yui knew that thinking they were safe there now was moot. Killing four of them in the driveway certainly would have attracted their attention.

Yui sat down at the base of the stairs and wiped sweat off her forehead. Ui was quite literally at a loss for words, her sister was _covered _in blood. She had never really liked blood to begin with, or at all, and now her sister was in front of her with it splattered across her clothes, arms, face, hair; all forming various crimson patterns.

"O-Onee-chan..." She whimpered and slowly approached her sister.

Yui sighed, and spoke in a dull, almost monotone voice that Ui wasn't familiar with, "Don't worry, it's not my blood. None of it is. It's the collective blood of Ricchan, Mugi-chan, and about fourteen other people."

Ui was taken back more by the tone of her voice than the words of her sentence. It was just so..._bleak_. She slowly extended a hand to help Yui up, which her sister eagerly took.

"I got the tea and milk..."

**MIO AND AZUSA'S STORY**

"...So what I was thinking is that there are actually a lot of other survivors, like us. But they're all hiding in doors, and maybe we're the only ones roaming the streets right now because we don't have anywhere else to go. Get what I'm saying?" Jun went on...and on again. Since they had started traveling across town with her, she hadn't stopped talking once.

Mio quietly spoke to Azusa while Jun was going on about various theories about the apocalypse, "Azusa, we're near Ritsu's house. I think we should stop there."

"To...let them know?" Azusa replied with a whisper.

"What's up?" Jun asked, both of the black haired girls cringed.

"We want to stop at Ritsu-senpai's home before we keep going." Mio told her.

"How safe it is?"

"That doesn't matter, we need to stop there." Mio adamantly told her, then changed the direction of her walking in an instant. She had been to Ritsu's home enough times to instinctively know where to walk. With a heavy heart, Mio knew this would probably be the last time she would ever walk there. Her teeth gritted, and tears formed again; making her feel ashamed and weak. _No! No more tears, tears were what got my best friend killed_. That shame turned into loathing for the dead around her.

Jun and Azusa didn't say anything as Mio hefted her shovel up and screamed obscenities over and over again as she beat one of the walking dead down to bloody ribbons. The force of smashing the shovel against their body left her hands aching and numb, with little blisters forming at the base of her fingers. Still, she felt better now that was out her system.

With her body shaking all over, Mio rejoined them.

Jun smiled and outstretched her hand like Mio was supposed to shake it, "Congratulations, you just popped your killing cherry."

Mio was not amused, "Jun, shut the fuck up."

"And you're the one with a fan club..." The pigtailed girl muttered. The fact that Mio didn't hear that had probably saved her life.

Jun kept up her nonstop chattering about her various theories about the undead, how they worked, and how it had started. Neither Mio nor Azusa paid much attention, they were just glad that Jun wasn't questioning the sudden change in itinerary. They both knew that they needed to tell Ritsu's family about what had happened... but neither of them really knew how to break that. Then there was Tsumugi's family...

Ritsu's house was now in sight down the street, with a no small number of undead wandering the streets of the suburbs. Jun flicked the safety off her gun, "Wow, why are they all in the street like this?"

"You said they were like this on the other side of town, what's the issue?" Azusa asked and loaded two more shells into the shotgun.

"There's no issue, no new one at least, I'm just wondering why they're like this." Jun shrugged and replied. Her eyes scanned the neighborhood, then she finally came up with a theory, "I get it now, I think... See how a few front doors are open? Well, I bet the zombies broke them down and killed the people inside. Then those people came out to join the ones out here and..."

"Jun, shut the fuck up." Mio said again. Jun stuck her tongue out and kept walking forward.

"So which house is Ritsu-senpai's?" She asked them. Azusa and Mio held their ground, refusing to go further, "Hey what's up, why did you stop? Weren't we going to go see Ritsu-senpai?"

"What?" Azusa blinked.

"You two wanted to go see Ritsu-senpai, so that's what we're doing. Isn't it?"

Mio and Azusa quickly glanced at each other. They realized that they hadn't told Jun the fate of Ritsu or Tsumugi. Mio realized that she didn't want to tell Jun about them, or Satoshi for that matter. Being an obituary for friends didn't quite sit well with her. She sighed and turned around, "No, forget it, I can't do this. Let's find somewhere else to stay..."

"What about Ritsu-senpai?" Jun asked, and quickly strode to catch up with her.

Azusa put a hand on Jun's shoulder and shook her head, "Ritsu-senpai isn't there."

"Then where is she?"

Mio looked back and quietly answered, "Nowhere."

"You mean?"

The bassist nodded, "Let's get going, before the horde here catches up."

"Are we still going to the arcade?" Azusa asked. Mio nodded.

"May as well, my house is still far away and past all the infected near Yui's neighborhood. I don't think we could get there in one piece." She had her cellphone out and was trying to send someone a text message while talking. Her relatively calm demeanor was randomly shattered, "Why won't someone at home pick up! This is the kind of situation where I'd imagine my parents would want to know of my whereabouts."

"All you can do is keep trying." Azusa told her.

"What about you, can you get a hold of your parents?" Mio asked her.

The twin tailed girl's eyes quickly found the ground, "No, they're not here."

"Mine either." Jun chimed in, "But I think they're dead...or zombies, or something."

Mio gave her a look of that was a blend of surprise, disgust, and anger. She had never thought someone could say something so blatantly evil and careless, "What is wrong with you! How could you say something like that!"

Jun threw her arms up in defense, "I was just kidding, they're at home right now."

"And they don't care that you're out wandering the streets like this with a loaded firearm?" Mio asked in total disbelief, her arms were crossed in a scornful gesture.

"Well..." The younger girl blushed.

"Oh my god...you weren't kidding about what you just said, were you?"

Jun's eyes quickly looked away from Mio. Both members of the Light Music Club were too stunned to say more. The younger bassist looked at the ground and quietly said, "Why does it matter anyways? All parents did were set stupid rules and tell me what I could and couldn't do. Never letting any of us do what we really wanted to do."

Mio slapped her across the face with the back of her hand, sending Jun sprawling backwards. "Are you fucking six years old! Parents set rules so their kids aren't wandering around dangerous streets with guns and pretending this whole thing is a game!"

The younger bassist, now on the concrete ground, looked back at the horde slowly advancing at them, then up at Azusa, "Azusa-chan, I know you used to complain about your parents setting rules and-"

"So you think I would want them dead!" Azusa screamed at her, "What would make you think for even a second that I share that kind of childish misanthropy! I love my mother and father very much...that's why I couldn't...Why am I even talking about this, let's go Mio."

"Right." Her companion nodded, "Now that I think about it, why would an arcade be a safe place at all? It's right in the middle of the city, and why would there be pizza there either? Besides, I don't even like pizza."

"Stop!" Jun cried at them as they were walking away.

"Fuck you, Jun." Azusa growled back at her, "We don't want to be around someone who would want us to die if we told you not to do something stupid. It would be detrimental towards the two of us."

"No!" The jazz bassist screamed back at her. The sheer viciousness in her voice was enough to make Azusa turn around.

"Grow up, Jun. And if you're parents are still alive, you should probably go spend some quality time with them." The twin tailed girl sighed and turned around.

"Fine, if you're going to be like that..." Jun mumbled, Mio and Azusa turned around instantly when they heard the M9 being cocked. Sure enough, that gun was being pointed at them.

"This is a joke right?" Azusa worriedly said, and noted just how close the infected were looming.

"No, you pissed me off." She replied with a dead serious look on her face, "Now hand me the shotgun and your wallets."

"You're...robbing us?" Mio couldn't believe that this was happening.

"Call it whatever you want." Jun shrugged, but kept the gun trained on Azusa. The guitarist slowly stepped forward with the gun held by the barrel. She was about to hand it over without any comments, until she saw the look in Jun's eyes. They were the eyes of a killer, like the eyes of Ritsu had been when she had gone after Yui. Something had happened to Jun earlier that day, something bad. And now she was ready to snap and unleash that fury onto someone else. Azusa didn't think that the shotgun would be used on a nonliving target.

With speed she didn't know she had, Azusa raised the shotgun like a club and smashed its butt into Jun's forehead. The M9 fired off, and Azusa cried out in pain when the 9mm ball punctured her right shoulder. She had hit Jun _hard_, her old classmate was on her hands and knees with blood flowing freely out of her mouth and nose.

"We need go now!" Mio reminded to Azusa and grabbed her by the wrist.

"We can't just leave her!" Azusa cried as the undead slowly began to work their way towards a disabled Jun. It was too late though, they had already gotten in between Jun and them. They just barely were able to run away in time...but had to listen to Jun's dying screams as they fled.

**THREE DOWN, FOUR TO GO.**


	5. Treason In Trust

**THE DEAD MUSIC CLUB CHAPTER 5- TREASON IN TRUST**

Ui frivolously worked at scrubbing all the blood off of her sister. The two of them sat naked in the washroom, with Ui behind Yui trying to wash all the blood away. The water beneath them was a pale crimson color that stained the white tile. Ui didn't realize she was crying right away, but it was impossible not to.

"You're okay now Onee-chan, nothing can hurt you..." She said for what was probably 15th time in ten minutes. Yui silently sat there and drew patterns in the soap bubbles that had managed to get on the wall. Normally she would draw crude etchings of butterflies and flowers, but in their stead were pictures of stick figures gorging on one another.

"I wonder if Azu-nyan is having fun right now with Jun-chan and Mio-chan." Said Yui, wondering, sounding very far off.

"Jun-chan is with them?" Ui conversationally asked through her tears. The extent of her knowledge about what happened that day with her sister consisted of Yui coming here alone with Mio and Azusa finding Jun, and leaving with her. That was all. No word on just how she managed to get so bloody.

"Y-yeah..." Yui stuttered, then lurched forward so that she was on her hands and knees.

"Onee-chan, are you alright?"

"No..." Yui moaned and clutched at her stomach. She coughed and choked for a moment before vomiting up a syrupy mess of black bile that quite literally tasted like death. Although Ui didn't know this, but it had been akin to the substance that Zombie-Ritsu had spat up onto Yui's face and mouth. Yui knew this, and it didn't surprise her that she was throwing it back up. To her, it was a miracle that she had kept it down so long.

Like nothing had happened, Yui sat back up and reached for her razor. Ui quickly stopped her. "But Ui, I need to shave."

"You're hands are shaking, you'd better wait or let me do it." Ui said, and used a wash rag to wipe some of the black stuff off of Yui's chin. It was both frightening and comfortable to see her sister trying to ease into routine again...mostly frightening. Fuck it, _everything _was frightening at this point.

"I think I'll wait until I feel better..." Yui groaned and clutched her stomach again. Ui heard it grumbled but its contents stayed inside her. She decided that night that she would do some one on one therapy with her sister. Terrible things had happened to Yui, and Ui knew that. The blood, the shaking, the way her happy demeanor had died... the fact that she had peed in the shower without a second thought, or even realized she had done so. Yes, her sister was probably pretty fucked up in the head at that point.

When most of the blood was finally cleaned off, and her hair was washed, Ui helped her sister dry off and get clean clothes on. All she could think about was how those evil monsters outside could try and attack her sister. Yui was too nice and pure for anyone to attack her, right, _right?_ And sure enough she had ended up having to watch Yui beat several of them to death with a shovel. That had _not _been a pleasant experience.

Much to what Ui assumed would be her sisters pleasure, the cake was ready finish up within minutes of them stepping back into the living room. Outside they could hear the moaning and growling of the dead. Yui looked around the kitchen and asked, "Ui, how much food do we have?"

"I don't know, we went shopping just the other day. Why?"

"Because the infected are completely packed around the front door I think. We're going to be here awhile." Yui told her, she was quickly walking to and fro around the house like she was looking for something.

"Infected?" Ui asked when Yui returned to the room.

Her sister rolled her eyes, a gesture Ui had never been subjected to. It almost made her want to cry, just because of how condescending it was. Her Onee-chan had _never _rolled her eyes at sighed, "I mean the zombies, or the undead, or ghouls, or whatever the hell you want to call them. Hm, do you know if we have a gun in the house somewhere?"

"Onee-chan!" Ui cried out, now sobbing again, "Why are you acting like this, you're scaring me!"

Yui scratched the back of her head and gave Ui a weak smile, "Kind of got carried away, sorry. I didn't mean to scare you or anything, I just kind of don't want to get eaten...Oh that reminds me, I need to text Mio and tell her that I made it safe."

Ui silently accepted that apology, but didn't feel any better. Yui's thumbs went to work to update Mio on what happened.

_Hiya Mio! I made it here okay, but don't follow me cuz there's zombies everywhere in my neighborhood. How are things going for the three of you? Tell Azu-nyan I said hi._

Only three minutes later, the message was returned...

_Jun is dead. Azusa says hi._

Oh cool, Azu-nyan said hi...wait WHAT? Was about what Yui was thinking. She was stunned that Mio would reply so bluntly. No way to build it up, no way to say it nicer, and she didn't even lie or use weird cryptic suggestions to pass it off. Just "Jun is dead".

"Is everything okay, Onee-chan?" Ui asked when she noticed that her sister looked like she was going to explode all over the living room. The room she had just cleaned.

"No." Yui whimpered, her phone fell from her hands and landed onto the floor beneath. She looked up at Ui with big wet tears in her eyes, "I don't wanna play zombie apocalypse anymore Ui! It's been only one day and I lost three of my friends. I don't want to play anymore!"

Her sister went to work to try to soothe those tears, but she didn't really know how. So she just held Yui and tried to tell her that everything was going to be okay, and that she was safe and sound in her arms. But if what Yui had said was true, that three of her friends were gone, then what was Ui supposed to do?

Through choking sobs, Yui confessed at least part of the day to Ui, "I don't understand Ui, I don't know why I'm being punished like this. I know I don't always behave like a good girl, I don't always do my homework, sometimes I say thing I don't mean, and I know sometimes I touch my-"

"You're not being punished, this is just a very...bad day." Ui tried to tell her.

"Then why wasn't I able to say goodbye to Mugi-chan? If there's a God, why didn't he just let me give Mugi-chan one more hug!" Yui sounded hysteric, desperate for an answer to her question. An answer that would give her some clue on how she could repent for whatever dire sins she had committed, so that no more of her loved ones would die.

Ui was oblivious to what her sister meant, and made it worse, "I'm sure you can hug her again."

"But then she'd eat me!" Yui retorted instantly, that caught Ui off guard, "I don't understand why Mugi-chan had to die, why her! Ricchan is right, the Christian God isn't very nice!"

_They're dead! _Ui finally understood it now. Suddenly her sister's behavior didn't seem all too odd, given the circumstances at hand. This seemed like something out of one of those horror movies the two of them would watch past dark. The ones where teenagers get put into situations where they all die very quickly.

The oven beeped, calling Ui to take the cake out and frost it and other cake stuff. She stood up, and Yui came with her, arms still attached. Her sister buried her face into her bosom and held her tight, "I'm not letting you go Ui, not until every last zombie is gone."

Considering everything that had happened that day, Ui didn't think that was a bad thing.

**WANDERING**

Azusa and Mio took a seat at the empty coffee shop and helped themselves to some coffee and muffins. They thought about how they had potentially murdered Jun, and didn't think borrowing a few muffins would drag them down any further. If there was a hell, they were already going to it...or were in it already. While trying to hold back obscene laughter, Mio thought, _Hey why don't we fuck each other while downing heroin and bloodletting for Satan? Why only sin a little when we can sin a lot? __Get a five star reservation in Hell!_

"Now what?" Azusa asked, while sipping at her black coffee.

Mio just shrugged and sipped at her own, "I don't know, all I know is that Yui is safe but Jun was right about there being zombies all over her part of town."

"Great." The twin tailed girl frowned. Outside the sky was turning into an orange twilight, staining the coffee shop in an eerie red-orange color. Azusa wasn't sure what they were supposed to do now. Mio's home seemed like the best bet, but there wasn't any telling if they would even be able to make it there.

"Any suggestions?" Her bloodied senior asked. Speaking of blood, Azusa felt like she had seen enough that day to last her a lifetime.

"Find a place to sleep?" The guitar playing refugee of this zombie stricken world suggested.

"Do you think your house would be an okay place to go?" Mio asked, since she couldn't really think of anywhere else to go.

Azusa shook her head and sipped again at her coffee, "No, I don't want to go back there."

"Because of her?" The black haired bassist whispered.

"Among other things..." She answered, "And guessing by what time it is, we wouldn't get to your house to well after dark. I don't want to be out here after dark with the dead."

"Me either." Mio shuttered, but wasn't being crippled by fear. Azusa had to admire just how far she had come in one day.

"Perhaps Yui-senpai would be able to shelter us. We could maybe use the last few shotgun shells to clear a path to her front door." Azusa went on to say.

Mio thought about it for a moment, "That's not a bad idea, it would probably be better if we were all together too. Let me just send a text message her way..."

_Hey, is okay if we stay with you since we have nowhere else to go and it's late? Don't worry about us, we can get there safe._

The two of them sat in silence and waited for a reply. It came after several minutes...

_This is Ui. Onee-chan is in the bathroom throwing up right now, but you two are welcome to stay here. Please try to be safe and get here before dark. I think Onee-chan would like the company too, see you in a bit._

"It's settled then." Mio said and stood up. She left her coffee cup and muffin wrapper were they were, littering was the least of her worries.

Azusa seemed to brighten up just a little bit, "Okay, let's get going then. We don't want it to be dark when we get there."

The bassist nodded, then looked at the white and red bandages around Azusa's shoulder, "How's you arm doing."

The wounded twin tailed guitarist stretched out her arm and grimaced, "It hurts a lot, but I came out lucky. Thank you again for helping to get the bullet out."

Mio's face went pale when she remembered the bloody ordeal that treating a bullet wound had been. Thankfully, 9mm bullets weren't particularly large, and it hadn't had gone deep into her either. So she had truly come off lucky. On the subject of that earlier scenario, Jun's death had been sudden as it was shocking. One moment they had this carefree copper-eyed girl happily chatting away with them. Next thing they knew she was drawing a gun on them and getting eaten alive. A man wiser than me once had a saying that fit that situation quite well, "That was seriously fucking gay."

Vulgarities aside, the two of them had their path laid out for them. Shotgun, shovel, and crowbar, they set out to find Yui's house again. The smell of acrid smoke was heavy in the air, which obviously hinted at a fire nearby. No sign of any firetrucks wailing through the twilight to put it out, or much other life for that matter. Like before, there were people here and there who were much in the same situation as they were. A few cars would pass them periodically, and not many of them made any attempt the occasional stray dead in the road.

"Hm..." Azusa hummed and stopped at what appeared to be a shrine that someone had erected. She had taken that road before, but had never seen it there before. Teddy bears were sprawled across it in small little piles. She read the inscription out loud, "Tastychainsaws' teddy bear refugee center. All refugees are free to a good home, and the center is always accepting wayward souls."

"The fuck?" She grimaced.

Mio sighed and picked up a fluffy white bear from the pile. Its black doll eyes looked back at her, strangely sorrowful in their nature. In the spirit of the late keyboardist, she decided to take it with her.

The two of them, or three if you counted the stuffed bear, rounded a corner onto the main road that would take them to Yui's house. Just a few blocks down was a car wreck in the center of a street. One of the new massive Toyota truck models had slammed head on with a much smaller Toyota sedan from the previous decade. Black smoke bellowed from the flames of the carnage. The undead were eagerly trying to get at the crispy remains of the drivers and passengers, and there were easily fifty of them in the road.

"How did we not hear that?" Mio blurted out. Several of the undead turned their heads at the noise, and began shuffling towards their new meal. The "eat Mio" craze caught on and the two of them realized that they needed to get out of there.

"Do you know any other good ways to get to Yui-senpai's home?" Azusa asked as they fled from the scene of the wreck. It only took them rounding two or three corners for the dead to get lost.

Mio rested her hands against her knees and tried to catch her breath, "Well, there's the woods nearby. I know Yui used them to go nearby her house during the marathon. Nothing says we can't do that too."

Azusa looked up at the waning sun, "Do we really want to wander around the woods in the dark with all the infected about?"

"We'd only be in there for a few minutes, and consider this- The infected only go where they were when they were human; or where other humans are." Mio explained to her. Azusa nodded in agreement. She was really starting to like this smart, take charge Mio who didn't cower in fear.

After following a few narrow streets and alleys, and painstakingly avoiding the dead that ended up there, the two found the wooded lot they could use to cross over to Yui's home. They climbed the low stone wall up to it, and began their hike through the darkness. The trees blocked out most of the potential sunlight, and left the woods much darker than they had hoped.

"Have you ever used this way before?" Azusa asked her senpai when the trail was starting to thin out.

"No, I've only ever visited her home using the road." Mio replied, then instantly picked up on the younger girl's fear, "But don't worry, I'm sure we'll find it just fine."

When they stepped into the small clearing that marked the other side of the lot, they could see the suburbs where Yui lived. They could find there way from there. However, they weren't alone in the clearing. A lone infected was walking to and fro, "his" left arm was missing, and another human arm was in his remaining hand.

Mio grimaced and looked away, intent on picking up her pace to get away from the monster. Azusa did the same, then quickly realized that the shuffling through the grass and dirt had become the sound of shoes pounding down in a sprint. A quick glance over her shoulder reassured her fears, this was one of the "fast zombies".

"Run!" She screamed to Mio and grabbed her by the wrist. The sprinting undead horror behind them screamed and quickly began to catch up with them. Hand in hand, Mio and Azusa ran back onto the street were plenty more dead were waiting for them.

"Which way?" Azusa quickly asked when they saw how the road went two ways.

Mio paused for half a second and did a quick calculation in her head, "Yui's house is that way!" She cried and pointed left. They took off in that direction and into the horde that Jun had warned them about. To make matters worse, the crowbar that Azusa had tied in her belt loop came free and clattered against the ground behind her. With the sprinting dead behind her, she didn't have a chance to pick it up.

Soon they were back on the main road, with the black smoke of the wreck looming the distance to their left. That meant Yui's home definitely nearby, but there _a lot _of dead to go through. It was like every person who had been sick with the "flu" that caused this had decided to go out into the street to die. This was _worse_ than the school had been, even on those stairs.

Mio screamed as Azusa pulled one of the triggers of the shotgun when the infected chasing them ended up getting to close. The buckshot sent it flying back with blood spurting out of the many new holes in its body. Since she was not even slightly proficient with firearms, Azusa had missed the head. But the sheer spread and strength of the buckshot destroyed her target's jaw. It made her wonder just what her dad had owned such a powerful weapon for.

"Now where?" Azusa quickly asked, and kept an eye on the thrashing dead she had just shot. The answer was obvious, "to the right", but there were too many of them to just maneuver through. Mio didn't answer, she was crouched down crying with her hands over her ears, with the teddy bear in her arms. With some pity, and disgust, Azusa realized that the black-haired bassist had wet herself from fear.

"Mio-senpai, please get up..." Azusa pleaded as the undead horde slowly began to surround them.

"I can't!" Mio cried and pressed her hands over her ears harder.

"Mio-senpai, I can't carry you. Get up!" The twin-tailed guitarist desperately said and grabbed her by the wrists. Mio wouldn't budge, she was truly paralyzed and blinded by fear. So Azusa did the only thing she could, she picked up Mio's fallen shovel and swung the blade into the nearest hungry dead. That more or less worked effectively, the sheer force of her swing embedded the rusted blade into its skull, but made her release her grip of it from the sudden burst of extreme vibration down the wooden shaft. It left her arms aching and shaking...and weaponless.

"Mio-senpai, I'm not going to leave you here, get up!" Azusa screamed at her, and grabbed Mio by the wrists to pull her up. She got up this time, but wasn't moving on her own accord. Azusa had to pull her by hand out of the circle that was starting to form around them. She dragged Mio through someones yard and into the back, hoping there would be an escape.

The backyard was fenced off from the surrounding homes. Azusa remembered hearing a little saying on a commercial or something years ago, "good fences make good neighbors". She disagreed with that statement then and there. Good fences made for good anti-social otaku. There was at least some saving grace, over the wooden fence she could see the very top of an RV. She pointed it at it so that Mio could see it too, "There, let's go there if there's no infected in the next yard."

Getting a running start, Azusa was able to jump and scramble over the wooden fence and into the next yard. Her knee landed straight on a sprinkler, leaving a jagged cut in it and tearing her jeans. She yelped in pain once, but got to her knees to make sure that Mio was right behind her. Whilst Azusa had done a messy scramble over the fence, Mio effortlessly vaulted over it (giving Azusa brief panty shot) and landed gracefully on her feet.

There weren't any infected in the back yard, and the front yard was blocked off by a chain link fence. Half of the lot was paved with various car parts scattered across the ground or on card tables. The RV looked like it saw frequent use. However, staying in the house seemed like a much better idea than staying in a camper in the backyard. All in all, the recreational vehicle had just served as a shining beacon of safety and capitalism.

"Think anyone is inside?" The twin-tailed girl with the injured knee whispered. She didn't know why she was whispering.

Mio shrugged, "I don't know..." She looked up at the night sky and at the full moon, "It's nighttime now..."

In the distance they heard a horrible, grating, inhuman scream. Like some horrible monster calling out for blood. Both of them jumped at how sudden that had been, it was followed by another further off. Azusa pulled a shotgun shell from the box in her pocket and loaded it. There was another scream in a different direction, "What the hell is that?"

Mio was shaking almost violently now, "It's the ones who run, they can scream I think. Maybe they're communicating or something?"

Azusa was _not _okay with the idea of those things being able to relay information between each other, "Let's just go inside and see if anyone is home."

The bassist nodded and walked to the back door, then rapped it several times with her knuckles. Minutes passed; no answer. She took a deep breath and tried to knob, it opened inwards effortlessly. With Azusa right behind her, they stepped into the nearly pitch black house.

"Hello?" The younger girl called out into the darkness. Mio fumbled for a light switch on the wall, her hands were shaking and she was sure that Azusa could hear her heart beating like a machine gun. They were nearly blinded when she finally got the light on, showing that they were in a living room, or privy, or something along those lines. Despite how the backyard had looked, the place was extremely Japanese in a traditional sense.

The guitarist slowly stepped forward into the now illuminated room, and looked for tell tale signs of the infected. The television news had said to look for black vomit stains on the floor, since the infected were constantly spewing the stuff out. The house looked abandoned though, like the family had left for safety. A quick scout showed that it was only two rooms, excluding the family room, but there were probably at least three children.

Mio closed up all the shades and turned off all the lights besides the washroom one. It gave them just enough illumination to see what they were doing in the center room. Although it was beyond rude to just invite themselves into a house like that, they weren't left with many options. Even though they were hungry, neither of them had much of an appetite. Those muffins earlier had been hard enough to keep down.

Wrapped in a blanket, huddled together, in the dark they sat in front of the TV with volume as low as possible. Every channel was now a news broadcast on the infection going about. In one day they had found a lot more information on just how the undead worked, and how to best deal with them.

The television showed a man in a white business suit, a military expert who was relaying information on the walking dead, "Like any other virus, this one has already mutated to produce different effects. This explains why we've seen three varieties of the infected."

"I thought there were only two..." Azusa muttered to herself.

"We've classified them in three levels..." The man went on, "First off is your basic level 1 infected. They're 'the walking dead' in every sense of the word; slow reaction time, no motor skills, hardly capable of passing the virus on. Then we have level 2, like the first but more coordinated; still rather easy to avoid. Last we have level 3, these ones have retained all their motor skills and athletic capabilities of their human existence. They will chase living prey and scream to attract others like them to help aid in hunting. Luckily, these ones are a rarity amongst the hordes."

"Good God, he's treating them like they're animals to be studied..." Mio said in disgust, and held Azusa tighter against her. That girl really was the perfect hugging size.

"Before we switch off back to the self-defense guides, I would like to say one more thing." That man said again, then took on a much more serious tone, "The virus that causes this infection is _highly transmittable. _Unless you're using long range firearms, coming into contact with the infected is an all around terrible idea. While level 1s and 2s may be easy to beat down with a hammer or something, if any of that blood gets in you; you're one of them. I shouldn't even have to say to avoid the level 3s, anyone whose seen them knows how much they vomit and spittle. All of which is highly infectious."

"Okay, no more killing them...great." Azusa sighed, not quite understanding whether or not she liked that concept or not.

**THE BONDS OF SISTERHOOD**

The moaning outside had been bad enough, but now the the undead were _screaming_. Yui and Ui were sitting silently in their living room listening to the constant screaming back and forth outside. Ui sadly watched her sister just shiver and stare at the floor, hardly even blinking. She was wondering if Yui would ever be okay again after this. Witnessing the death of two friends must have been emotional hell, even Ui didn't know the circumstances of which they died.

"I'm going to bed." Yui promptly declared and stood up. She sneezed into her arm, then sniffled once before walking off.

"Wait, Onee-chan!" Ui cried out, not exactly sure what she wanted exactly; she just didn't want to be alone.

"Hm?" Her sister turned around to face her. It was then that Ui realized how pale her sister looked, and how thick the circles under her eyes were.

Ui made a pyramid with her fingers and blushed, "Can I sleep with you tonight, I don't want to be alone with everything that's going on outside."

Yui looked somehow relieved, like she had wanted to ask the same thing, "Sure Ui, let's share my bed. It's cozy."

They did just that, and for just a few moments life seemed to take on a more comfortable pace. The younger Hirasawa sister was out within seconds, falling asleep comfortably in her older sisters arms. Even if Hell was happily raging outside, at least she could find solace in the arms of the one she loved. Ui was definitely terrified of what would come, but knew that her big sister would keep her safe throughout it all.

Yui was not sharing the same thoughts of security in love. While her baby sister was asleep in her arms, she was feeling restless and light headed. Her stomach lurched again, and she was afraid that she would have to run to the restroom to vomit for the sixth time that night. Whatever she had eaten earlier, assuming she had eaten anything at all, did not agree with her. It came out in black, soupy torrents that tasted like nothing she had ever tasted in her short life. Yui compared its taste to the smell of a dead possum she had passed on her way to school once. The little creature had been ran over with an electric scooter, and left there to rot with its guts spilling out of its mouth. Neither the sight nor smell had been sensually appealing.

Some primal, reasonless part of her brained screamed at her to stay awake. Falling asleep would mean the end; it would mean that she wouldn't wake up again. Yui couldn't explain that feeling, but it terrified her. _If I just rest my eyes for a moment... _Were her last thoughts before darkness overcame her.

Sometime later, Ui slowly awoke as her sister stirred next to her. There was thump, apparently Yui had fallen off the bed. The younger Hirasawa sister looked at the digital clock, 1:35, and that meant the power was still on. She chuckled and extended an arm to help her sister up, "Onee-chan, you can be such a kid sometimes..."

Yui grabbed her forearm, harder than Ui had expected, in fact _much _harder than Ui had expected. Her sister's unnaturally cold grasp pulled her off the bed, and onto the floor as well. Ui chuckled at this and playfully pinned her sister's arms down with her own, "Onee-chan, I'm too tired to play right now. Wait until morning."

Ui didn't see just how pale her sister was, or how her eyes had taken a far off look. She let her go and went to crawl back onto the bed, but Yui's ice cold hand grabbed at the back of her pajamas. Now it was time for her to be stern, "Onee-chan, not right now!"

She started to realized that something was wrong with Yui when she pulled her quite forcefully to the ground. Yui's undead hands tore Ui's pajama top in two, breaking several of the buttons, and leaving her stomach exposed. Now the younger Hirasawa sister was scared, "Onee-chan, what are you doing? You ripped my shirt!"

Her query was replied with an human hiss, and fingernails digging into the flesh around her belly button. Ui was too stunned, frightened, and confused to figure out just what her sister was doing. So far, this all seemed like some strange joke. But she realized that this wasn't just a joke when the those fingernails began to draw blood.

The younger sister screamed as the flesh of her tummy was torn apart, revealing the fleshy inner workings beneath. Blood, now free of its human prison, flowed over and onto the floor. Yui had torn her sister apart like Moses had parted the red sea, except there was more red this time around. The undead monster that was Ui's sister reared her head back then brought it back down to gorge on the feast before her.

Blood splattered and stained everything around them as Yui tore out most of her sister's large intestine with her teeth, and used her hands to pull out whatever her cold fingers could grasp. Intestines slipped through her blood soaked fingers as she tore at the insides of her sister.

Hirasawa Ui kicked, screamed, cried, and wondered just why her sister had decided to take her life in such a grizzly manner. She had tried her best to make her Onee-chan happy, constantly fearing that she would move on or begin to hate her. But she had never expected Yui to brutally end her life like this.

**FIVE DOWN, TWO TO GO.**


	6. A Plea Of Insanity

**THE DEAD MUSIC CLUB CHATPER SIX- A PLEA OF INSANITY**

Azusa had remembered them sleeping together, but when she awoke, there was no sign of her senpai. She rubbed the last bits of sleep from her eyes and stood up, no undead had eaten them; so that was worth celebrating. It was strange how her mind worked, Mio was gone and all she could think of was how it was strange that the owners of this house showed their wealth with all the stuff out back; but the inside didn't even have proper roofing, she could see the rafters. According the digital clock, it was just past 4 A.M.

Perhaps her senpai had gone in the kitchenette to make breakfast or was in the restroom or something.

"Oh no..." The twin-tailed survivor exhaled when she looked into the small kitchenette.

The chair had been kicked, the roped tied to the rafters, blue face and broken necked Mio had died. Tears blurred Azusa's vision of what laid before her. In the earlier morning, Akiyama Mio had hanged herself. No note was needed, it was obvious to Azusa why she had done it. Ritsu...Tsumugi...Jun...Yui next with her obvious condition... she just couldn't take all the death.

Azusa didn't know what to do...whether or not she should cut the rope or what. She was overall too grief stricken to make any decisions regarding what to do with the body. Even if she could think clearly, that wasn't something she should have been tasked with to begin with. All she wanted to do was run; run away from their town and all the death that came with it.

_Why not? _Her irritating recurring mind voice asked, _Why not just run away, no one will blame you when they find Mio's corpse. When you really think about it, it would have been surprising if she _hadn't _had killed herself._

She fell to her knees and let the tears flow forth, because she knew that evil mind voice was right. After Ritsu had died, and Tsumugi, she hadn't had expected Mio to keep on going for very long. It made her feel like a bitter, disgusting person to think that, but it couldn't be helped. Mio was a coward through and through, so she took the cowards way out.

**SIX DOWN, ONE TO GO.**

"I'm the only one left..." Azusa realized. Although she didn't have proof, she knew that she could count Yui out. Ui had relayed that she had been vomiting black, a trademark of the infected, and now neither of them were answering their cellphones. It wasn't too unrealistic to assume they were both dead. That thought sent a shock throughout Azusa's worn out body, "All my senpai's, and friends my age are dead. _Everyone's dead!_"

It didn't help that she had been directly responsible for the death, and permanent death of two of them. If the police decided to incarcerate people who killed the undead, saying that it was still murder, Azusa was responsible for a total of five deaths. That was not going to live with her easily. Still, it was amazing that _she _was the last one, surely one of her senpai's would have been able to survive this over her. Terrible mind voice answered that for her, _Think about it, you're much more capable than all them were._

The twin-tailed zombie survivor had to admit that mind voice was right this time. Insane laughter cackled softly from her when she thought about it. They really were all screw ups, it was no surprise they were dead. She turned away from Mio and laughed looking the other way, then in a higher pitched voice she imitated a certain dead drummer, "Hey, I'm the president of the Light Music Club, look how awesome I am! Ignore the fact that I got bitten in about seven places. I also like to die in people yards and pass the infection to everyone else."

She had to admit, her little impersonation was pretty damn good, scary accurate. Her voice took on another change, "Now I'm Tsumugi-senpai! All I ever do is sabotage the band by making dozens of liters of tea every day, _tea that isn't even all that good_. No more tea though, because I was too stupid to watch my back around Zombie-Ritsu."

That one was a little harsh, but the keyboardist had it coming. Azusa had to consider who was to be next for a moment, then appropriately changed her voice, "Yui-senpai here, I sure love getting black gooey blood in my mouth and..." Azusa's voice went from mocking her to breaking up into tears, "...and...and I leave my friends without ever saying goodbye... Now I'm Mio-senpai, I left my last friend all alone in the world where she has no one left. Where she has nowhere to go, no place to stay, and no reason to keep going."

Looking up at Mio, Azusa silently hated her, envied her, and wanted her back all at the same time. She decided that she couldn't have just left her where she was. It was dirty job, but respect for the dead was still an important thing, even in with things the way they were. The first problem Azusa ran across was the fact that Mio had tied a pretty good slipknot. This meant that she would have to cut the rope, not untie it. Azusa had heard somewhere that people who hanged themselves would void their bowels upon death, but Mio had not followed this and kept her panties only urine stained from the day before. Thank God for small miracles.

Using a box cutting razor she found in the backyard, Azusa climbed up on the chair and sawed away at the hemp that had ended her friend's life. Since she didn't think too far ahead, Azusa wasn't prepared for when Mio fell on top of her, and knocked her off the chair she was standing on. The hardwood floor showed no mercy on her back as she collided with it.

Crying out in pain and surprise, Azusa frantically worked to push the dead bassist off of her. She pushed the corpse off of her by the shoulders, and Mio landed sitting up against the wall next to them. Slumped like a headless scarecrow, cold and limp against the wall.

Mio's body lifelessly stared at her as she quickly scooted backwards away from her, so her back was up against the other kitchenette wall. She had to wonder just why she hadn't closed Mio's eyes. Holding her breath, and full of terror filled tension, Azusa slowly crawled over and used the back of her hand to close Mio's eyelids; grimacing the whole time at the feeling of cold, dead flesh.

"Now what do I do with you?" She sighed, without realizing that she was cradling the corpse in her arms. It didn't seem real, it really didn't, none of it did. Azusa held Mio close to her, and kept feeling for a pulse, or any sign of life from her.

Nothing, Akiyama Mio was quite thoroughly dead. The crooked angle of her head, which gave away the fact that her neck was broken, should have tipped off Azusa in the first place if the whole "hanged" thing didn't. But she kept the bassist against her, still waiting for those eyelids to flicker open and tell her that everything was alright. Then Ritsu would show up and share some story about what her brother did while laughing. Tsumugi would be making them all some of her expensive tea. Yui would no doubt be over her shoulder watching with wonder as she simultaneously prepared the cake for them.

That wasn't happening though, because they were all dead. The more Azusa thought about it, the more she realized that she didn't care what happened to her anymore. Let the infected come and rip all her insides out and fucking finger paint with it. Then maybe she could be with her friends in a world where they had enough time to eat _and _play their instruments. Plus in that world her parents wouldn't be dead either.

When everyone she ever knew and loved was dead, it brought up the question, "Great now what the hell do I do?" And Azusa really didn't have an answer for that. The only answer was to keep on surviving and moving on. At least until the world decided to be a little less dead. Her twisted mind voice had other ideas though, _Why bother moving on though? If you make it through this, and everything goes back to the way it was, where will that leave you? Think about it, you'll be shifted between foster homes left and right where no one will really love you. Face it Me, you're going to be alone the rest of your life now. So why not just find some fancy way to go out in style? Find out how to make napalm out of gasoline and styrofoam then just kill as many infected bastards as you can while going down in smoke!_

While Napalm Death didn't really sound all that appealing, going out with a bang did. Azusa literally couldn't think of a single thing still worth living for. In one single day she had lost _everything _without any chance to ever get any of it back. But even in her suicidal depression, she felt that just killing herself with the shotgun, or getting chewed apart, felt oddly..._lacking_.

But before biting a bullet or something along those lines could be done, the twin-tailed manic depressive decided that she should do something with Mio's body. While they had just left Ritsu and Tsumugi to whatever fate had in store, it felt wrong to just leave this body in the home of a stranger. Figuring out what to do was difficult though, and Azusa was no undertaker. Burying her seemed just..._wrong_, burning her seemed creepy and strangely sadistic, and throwing her into the hungry arms the dead wasn't even worth considering for a moment. Perhaps she could carry her to her home and lay her on her bed or something? Let the police find her when that was all over. Something about that didn't seem right either, it seemed lacking somehow. It felt like she would be abandoning her.

Then it hit her, a way to end all her problems. It came to her when a memory surfaced, a memory of one of the few times it had just been the two of them. Mio had taken Azusa with her to reclusive part of the local beach where wind whipped water against the rocks endlessly. She said that it was where she went when she really wanted to find song lyrics inside herself. The rain had chased them home quickly, but Azusa still remembered the power and tranquility of that place.

With little enthusiasm, the guitarist wrapped Mio's arms around her shoulder and lifted her up like a groom would carry his new wife. She left the shotgun behind and awkwardly managed to get the door open and step outside. It was still dark, but the moon, stars, and streetlights gave her just enough light to figure out where in the city she was.

They had taken the train originally to get to that spot, but it still wasn't all that far. A three hour walk at the most, but carrying Mio would make it that much harder. The screams of the "level 3" infected still rung throughout the night, and each one would make Azusa's heart skip a beat. She silently prayed that she could make it to her destination before one of them caught wind of her and decided to launch a crusade. Besides them, the normal infected were as easily avoidable as before.

It made her really wonder just how so many people had become so infected so fast. She understood the flu part of it, and how _everyone _with it had turned into a zombie within five minutes of each other. The twin-tailed potential undertaker realized how that must have cornered a lot of people. When half your classmates or coworkers turn into infected monsters without warning, it didn't leave you with many options for escape. Then again, her friends had escaped the School of the Dead in one piece. So overall there was no solid answer beyond "people sucked". And Azusa knows how much people suck.

The city had become a necropolis. The smell of the dead was nauseating and seemed to hang over everything like some horrible miasma. Car wrecks became a frequent sight as she moved towards the train station, intending to follow its tracks. Blood was splattered all around the sidewalks from the infected constantly vomiting, and eating others.

Car crashes, the smell of death, all the blood, Azusa believed that she was quite literally in hell now. But at least the fast zombies of hell were leaving her alone for now. As predicted, there were infected all around the station. But she didn't need to go through the station to find the tracks, so she quickened her pace to avoid the dead, and went around the other way. After sidestepping around the buildings in the area, Azusa was able to find the tracks leading out of town.

After only maybe thirty minutes of walking so far, she was completely exhausted. It was a warm muggy night, and having to keep speeding up to avoid the infected was starting to take a toll on her. Not to mention she was carrying around some 55 kilos of literal dead weight in her arms. Then there was the issue of her bullet wound... Long story short, Azusa hurt.

Azusa took a quick glance behind her and saw that shadowy figures were shuffling after her a little way back. Since the tracks were a straight line, there wasn't much hope of losing them. She could easily out walk them, but this meant she couldn't stop and rest for any reason.

"You're heavier than you look, you know that?" She grunted and shifted Mio around in her arms to alleviate some of that burden. Part of her still was expected Mio to blush and apologize, then walk on her own. Nothing had changed though, Mio was still quite dead. The twin-tailed traveler of this necropolis didn't know why she was having such a rough time accepting Mio's death. It was probably because the bassist's was the only death she had really had to deal with first hand. She either didn't have to see the bodies of the others, or they were infected monsters. Somehow it was easier to deal with the death of friends when they were trying to kill you ex post facto.

Not to mention she didn't really know if Yui had suffered a grim fate or not. Sure she had witnessed her senpai have black blood spewed into her mouth and eyes from a certain zombie drummer, but that didn't mean... Fuck, of course it did, and Azusa knew it. She could only hope that Ui didn't go down as well. Fuck that too, she knew that Ui would be too god damned stupid and attached to her sister to realize that anything was wrong. _Onee-chan, why are to staggering and moaning. Hey, why are you trying to eat me now!_

Azusa shook her head and tried to chase those evil thoughts away. It wasn't particularly nice to think ill things about dead friends. She wished there was a way to silence her mind so she would stop over thinking things. Then, all of a sudden, it made sense why people smoked pot and listened to death metal. Those were both two very good ways to turn your brain off and forget about how much the world sucked. It was then that Azusa almost wished that she had a dimebag and an _At The Gates _album. All she had were aching legs and a dead bassist. Although in this world she could have probably easily traded a dead bassist for a bag of weed and a death metal album; if she so wished to. Even if she did, that sort of thing was only really done in places like South America and the northern parts of China.

"What the hell am I thinking about?" Azusa chuckled with insane laughter. It was funny how her mind would just go off like that, thinking of things that people would deem utterly insane. Wasn't that what the mind of a psycho was made up of though? Random disjointed, potentially evil thoughts that would generally worry others if they knew about them. She sighed again, "There I go again, over thinking everything."

Maybe if she decided to live through all of this, she could publish a journal full of random ideas and thoughts, "The Chronicles of Azu-nyan".

Rain began to patter down on her head, with the wind picking up. It was only a light sprinkle, which was easily bearable. The wind kept her small bangs blowing in her eyes, and was upsetting her twin-tails. If she didn't have a lifeless Mio in her arms, she definitely would have gone and retied them. Just another thing the dead were preventing her from doing. It was strange how lifeless people seemed to cause more problems than there breathing brethren.

"We're almost there Mio-senpai." Azusa whispered, sure enough the next town loomed in the distance. From there it would only be a short walk to the shore. Taking a chance, she sat down at the edge of the tracks to rest for a few minutes. The undead were still a ways behind her, so she had time. Her arms screamed in relief when the weight was off of them. They had been burning from the strain, and the bullet would in her shoulder. For a few brief moments she could almost forget that she had been shot, since the pain blended in with all the other parts of her body that ached and burned. _Fuck you Jun, you deserve to get eaten if you go around shooting people like that._

When the undead were within moaning distance, Azusa knew it was time to get going again. She grunted, hefted Mio back up, and started off again. The rain had picked up, along with the wind, leaving her bitterly cold. It was suiting though, because that was exactly how she felt.

She passed the few houses that made up the outskirts of the little town, and changed her direction to what she believed would take her to the ocean. It wouldn't be the exact same spot Mio had taken her, but the bassist was too dead to complain. At least lifeless people didn't complain like their breathing brethren did.

The smell of salt water gently caressed her senses as she moved closer to her destination. Venturing that close to the town had attracted some of the out laying dead, but that (like many other things now) didn't matter. They wouldn't catch up with her as long as she followed the smell of seawater. That salty smell reminded her of their vacation to "practice" overnight.

Suddenly, she was almost unable to stand. That thought brought about another one, one reminding her that she would never see any of them again. No more laughing, eating cake, playing music, or getting Yui hugs. Strike that, no she would see all of them again... just in a different place; whatever was beyond the realms of death. She still had one last thing to look forward too.

Azusa's pace had slowed down dramatically with the onset of fatigue. The undead were getting closer and closer, she couldn't afford to stop for any reason now. She had made good progress though, the ocean was in view and dawn was barely beginning to break.

"Go figure..." Azusa grumbled when she saw the multiple undead remains of tourists scattered around the area. Maybe finding Mio's special spot would have been a smart endeavor, less tourists. Nothing she couldn't handle though. Pushing through hard winds and rain, Azusa stepped foot onto the uneven sand.

Sparing just a moment to compose herself, she readjusted Mio in her arms and took one final glance behind her. Although she had known that there were a few infected tracking her, she was not expecting and entire horde. At least hundred hungry dead had joined the chase, almost completely blocking any way back. That was fine though.

She felt it strange that her only thought was how great letting Mio down would feel; her arms were about ready to fall off now. The crashing waves of the ocean splashed against her shoes as she crossed into the water. It was painfully cold, and the waves were almost pushing her back. Azusa realized that she was walking straight into a storm that was coming in from the water. It made her wonder how the undead would fare against the harsh waves if they followed her into the water. Not to mention the current that was tugging at her.

Looking back, Azusa didn't even remember how or why she thought up this idea. Laying Mio to rest at sea, now all of a sudden it seemed...less than smart. And beyond that, just plain silly. She had come too far though, and it worked as an easy way out for her too. All life came from the sea, so it was fitting that it would end there too...or something along those lines.

When she had gone far enough out so that the water was up to her elbows, the sea-soaked guitarist let her friend go from her arms. The current that had been tugging at her the whole time eagerly took the bassist with it, making her disappear in the blackened waves almost instantly.

Now that was over, Azusa felt like she had accomplished something major. It was akin to that feeling someone got when they finally finished a 200 question exam and were confident that they got every answer right. It was relieving, no more weight on her soul or arms anymore.

Nakano Azusa outstretched her arms and felt the current take her as well. Her eyes took one last glance at the rising sun before night colored liquids filled her lungs.

**15 DAYS LATER...**

Manabe Nodoka loaded two shells into the Remington 7188 she had found off that crashed military truck. It was simply amazing to her how people essentially left loaded firearms just laying around for anyone to find. That gun had been a lucky find, but nearly every other house had a pistol or rifle of some kind. It suddenly made sense why a country like the United States had over 11,000 gun murders a year.

Even after two weeks of dealing with the undead, having to put down an old friend, or anyone she used to know, was still hell on her. The first zombie had to kill off for good had been Sawako, turning on her in the Nurse's Office. The sharp edges of a filing cabinet had proved to be good for breaking skulls. She was lucky to get out before _all _the sick kids turned on her.

She took the small spiral notepad from her back pocket, and using a red pen marked off two more names. Nodoka had made a list of every person she could think of that she knew, and made it her goal to find each of them. Each name was either marked with a red circle, which meant that they were safe; a red square, which meant that they were alive but not safe; or a red X, which meant no longer alive.

Sparing just one glance at the remains of the Hirasawa sisters in their home, she marked off their names with a red X. Tears were fighting to break free, seeing Ui missing her entire lower body, and still trying to come at her, had been just a little bit sickening.

But seeing so much death in such a short time had a way of desensitizing you. There would be plenty of tears, but they would have to wait for when it was safe to cry. That was Nodoka's goal now, find a place where it was truly safe. There had to be _somewhere _that the government was using military force to protect. She wouldn't go alone though, first she would find at least one person that was alive and well. So far there had been no red circles or squares.

Next on her list was the house of the youngest Light Music Club member, Azusa. Nodoka believed that Azusa was a smart girl, chances were that she was there with the rest of the Light Music Club. Once again her eyes caught sight of the two dead Hirasawa sister's, and her stomach lurched in disgust. Killing the infected remains of your friends and family was a daunting task, but hey, someone had to do it.

**2 DOWN, 1,363,080,634 TO GO**

Heyuh, it's the author, Tastychainsaws, with some words, and a, run-on sentence, with too many, commas.

First off, I appreciate you taking time off of doing whatever it is you otherwise do on the internet to humbly read of my story. I know it's not the greatest thing put on the internet, but I really worked hard on this and I hope that it shows. I've seen some other stories get criticized for being a bit too dark or edgy, so I'm a little worried about throwing this one on the site. My hope is that people will do what they did with that story were Yui gets brutally raped, and take it for what it is.

Another little note, I know some things in the story weren't really fleshed out too much. Like why were there NATO soldiers in that area, or where the virus came from, and those were left unexplained because there was no way for the characters to know. I don't appreciate dramatic irony as much as some.


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